patterns. The National Treasury estimates that metropolitan governments
now fund well over 70 percent of their budgets from property rates, and it also
notes a marked upturn in collection of user charges in some areas.
Expenditure Budgets
More than 80 percent of total municipal expenditure occurs in South
Africa’s 23 largest urban municipalities, although basic service backlogs are
more prominent in rural areas, where revenue potential is weaker and
budget deficits occur frequently. The distribution of national transfers has
attempted to account for this difference, with the bulk of allocations going
to more rural municipalities and cities experiencing significant declines in
the level of transfers. Metropolitan municipalities have been receiving less
than 20 percent of all transfers in the past few years, and this figure is projected
to decline further over the medium term.
Estimated total operating budgets amount to R 52.7 billion for the
2002/03 municipal year and R 72.6 billion in 2003/04, with estimates for
2005/06 at R 93.3 billion. Table 2.1 shows that salaries take up the largest
share of municipal budgets, totaling R 25.5 billion in 2003/04, and they have
been around 30 percent of operating budgets for a number of years. There
have been some expectations that the amalgamation of local governments
as an outcome of the demarcation process would bring down the salary component.
However, transitional costs and the approach of several amalgamating
municipalities to synchronizing salary packages upward—in line with
higher-grade municipal posts rather than average or lower post levels—have
thus far limited this potential effect. The National Treasury and DPLG are
both attending to the issues and hope to redress it in the coming years. Table
2.1 also shows that R 17.1 billion was budgeted for expenditure for bulk purchases
of water and electricity in 2002/03.Moreover,R 29.8 billion was budgeted
for other expenditures in the same year (repairs and maintenance,
general expenditure, and interest and redemption of loans and provisions
for undercollection of revenue of the municipal operating budget).
The extent of capital expenditure remains a source of concern. Although
budgeted allocations for capital for have grown from R 11.7 billion in
2002/03 to more than R 25 billion in 2005/06, this growth may not represent
an accurate picture of the actual levels of local development spending. First,
some double counting occurs in capital budgets because of intramunicipal
transfers from districts to local municipalities. Second, past performance
indicates that actual capital expenditure is less than budgeted, mainly
because multiyear budgeting is not yet adequately practiced at the local level,