{"id":45638,"date":"2026-09-16T12:13:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=45638"},"modified":"2026-09-16T12:13:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:13:45","slug":"sa-finance-minister-cites-execution-deficit-in-infrastructure-crisis","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-finance-minister-cites-execution-deficit-in-infrastructure-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"SA Finance Minister cites execution deficit in infrastructure crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana has confirmed that South Africa&#8217;s (SA) severe infrastructure backlog is driven by poor asset management and execution rather than a lack of capital, aligning with recent findings by Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Writing in an analysis published this Wednesday, Pragma Public Sector Lead Bani Kgosana noted that Godongwana highlighted a structural delivery failure across government entities, citing over R20 billion ($1.1 billion) in unspent water grants scattered across departments amidst nationwide water shortages.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to Auditor-General reports for the 2024\/25 financial year, neglected maintenance cost SA municipalities R14.73 billion ($809.3 million) in water losses and R21.63 billion ($1.19 billion) in electricity losses, totaling R36 billion ($1.98 billion) in avoidable asset decay. Audit findings further revealed that 63% of inspected municipal wastewater treatment works discharged non-compliant effluent, 97% of landfill sites were mismanaged, and 78% of audited infrastructure projects experienced average execution delays of 25 months.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Although the SA government has earmarked R1.07 trillion ($58.79 billion) for public infrastructure over the next three years, including roughly R205 billion ($11.26 billion) allocated to local government via the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, Godongwana warned that capital risks returning to the fiscus unspent or mismanaged unless public entities establish accurate asset registers, maintain oversight, and partner with private sector asset management specialists.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica\/Pragma &#8212;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22816,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-45638","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Godongwana warns $58.79 billion infrastructure budget at risk","published_date":"2026-09-16 12:13:01","news_description":"Godongwana warns $58.79 billion infrastructure budget at risk","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45638","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\/45638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45640,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45638\/revisions\/45640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=45638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}