{"id":39077,"date":"2026-07-08T11:52:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T09:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=39077"},"modified":"2026-07-08T11:52:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T09:52:01","slug":"sas-johannesburg-other-municipalities-face-funding-freeze-over-high-spending","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sas-johannesburg-other-municipalities-face-funding-freeze-over-high-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"SA&#8217;s Johannesburg, other municipalities face funding freeze over high spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s (SA) National Treasury will withhold funding from Johannesburg and dozens of other \u200bmunicipalities for at least a month over persistent \u200cand serious non-compliance with financial management regulations, officials said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The move comes before local elections on November \u200b4, in which Johannesburg, SA&#8217;s economic \u200bhub and largest municipality, is expected to \u2060be among the most hotly contested battlegrounds.<\/p>\n<p>Ogalaletseng \u200bGaarekwe, Treasury&#8217;s Deputy Director General of intergovernmental relations, told \u200ba news conference on Wednesday that $220 million in funding would be withheld from Johannesburg in July.<\/p>\n<p>She \u200bstressed the move did not amount to \u200bplacing the city under administration.<\/p>\n<p>Around 69 municipalities will have a \u200cportion \u2060of their funding suspended until September unless they can show they have reduced wasteful expenditure by at least 25%, Treasury officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Finance Minister Enoch \u200bGodongwana has repeatedly \u200braised concerns \u2060about Johannesburg&#8217;s financial management.<\/p>\n<p>In May, the city approved a $5.98 \u200bbillion budget that Treasury said was \u200bunfunded \u2060because planned spending exceeded realistic revenue projections and included a sharp increase in the municipal wage bill.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":39078,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-39077","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"SA National Treasury will withhold funding from Johannesburg, dozens of other \u200bmunicipalities","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39079,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39077\/revisions\/39079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=39077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}