Treasury still holding onto Bay funds

National Treasury says it has not committed to any date to release the R330m equitable share to the municipality.

This, despite acting Bay municipal manager Peter Neilson saying he expected Treasury to pay over the second allocation of the equitable share by Tuesday following a meeting in Pretoria on Thursday.

In a response sent late on Friday, Treasury confirmed the meeting between Neilson and acting CFO Jackson Ngcelwane, and said it provided Bay officials with the information required by Treasury to determine whether the municipality has remedied its non-compliance with the municipal Standard Chart of Accounts (mSCOA) and other related matters.

"Treasury has not committed to a specific date for the release of the funds, but as soon as Treasury has received all the required information there will be no need to delay the transfer of NMBM’s equitable share," National Treasury said.

The Treasury held back the second equitable share allocation from the municipality after it failed to implement a new mandatory accounting system – the Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts (Mscoa) – which has to be rolled out across all municipalities.

Mscoa, which is meant to link all municipalities onto a single IT system that is linked to the national government, has cost the metro tens of millions of rands to date.