{"id":860363,"date":"2026-05-14T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=860363"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:39:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:39:54","slug":"the-best-run-province-in-south-africa-and-it-isnt-even-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/860363\/the-best-run-province-in-south-africa-and-it-isnt-even-close\/","title":{"rendered":"The best-run province in South Africa – and it isn’t even close"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Western Cape has the best-run finances in the country by far, with its unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure (UIFWE) balances 25 times lower than the country’s worst offender, North West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure at South African municipalities increased in 2025, with over R268 billion unaccounted for in the latest data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of the alarming findings in the National Treasury’s Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) compliance report for 2024\/25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report assesses municipalities’ compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks at municipal performance in areas such as asset management, cost containment, UIFWE, consequence management, supply chain management, audits, and the use of consultants, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Treasury noted “incremental progress” in some areas, such as financial reporting and cost containment, it flagged deep-seated weaknesses in others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of particular concern are persistent issues in leadership stability, consequence management and implementation discipline, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worryingly, municipalities are not making progress with UIFWE, where the national balance of this spending has increased from R264.10 billion in 2023\/2024 to R268.13 billion in 2024\/2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Treasury said this has been driven by systemic failures in internal controls and weak consequence management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irregular expenditure remains the most significant contributor to the UIFWE balances, it said, reflecting widespread non-compliance with procurement and financial regulations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Many municipalities lack robust systems to ensure the timely implementation of council resolutions on the recoverability or write-off of UIFWE,” it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More concerning, however, is that the National Treasury observed high levels of write-offs taking place, rather than attempts to recover money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, it said, indicated municipalities’ failure to hold individuals accountable for financial misconduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department noted that allegations of financial misconduct declined from 1,116 reported in 2023\/24 to 614 in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financial misconduct cases investigated fell from 601 in 2023\/24 to 544 in 2024\/25, and officials against whom disciplinary action was taken dropped from 255 in 2023\/24 to 236 in 2024\/25. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While these regressions may point to fewer such cases, they could also reflect delays in instituting or proceeding with disciplinary cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They could also reflect weak policy enforcement or poor understanding of disciplinary processes, Treasury said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Western Cape is the best by far<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the UIFWE balances across the country, the North West Province is the worst offender, racking up a total of R71.14 billion in 2025, up from R67 billion the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is 25 times larger than the Western Cape, which has the lowest UIFWE spend at R2.8 billion\u2014a reduction from R3.5 billion the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Western Cape UIFWE balance is even 3 times lower than that of its closest ‘competitor’, Limpopo, cementing its position as the province with the best-run municipal finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other reductions in UIFWE were recorded in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, the Northern Cape, and a slight drop in Mpumalanga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All other provinces saw UIFWE increase, with the biggest jump in the North West, which has maintained the top position for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, even where provinces saw a drop in UIFWE, Treasury slammed the high balances, remarking that they were much larger than municipal capacity and reflected long-term issues and persistent weaknesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Treasury said that, although improvements were recorded in some provinces, these gains were outweighed by significant increases in provinces with large existing UIFWE balances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The continued growth in the national UIFWE balance highlights structural weaknesses in governance, financial oversight and accountability mechanisms,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of particular concern was the continued escalation in the North West, which Treasury said reflects deep-rooted governance failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These include prolonged vacancies in key financial positions, weak supply chain management controls and ineffective consequence management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conversely, referring to the Western Cape, it said, “the sustained reduction reflects relatively mature internal control systems, stronger preventative measures and more consistent oversight during 2024\/25.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The trend demonstrates the impact of stable governance and disciplined financial management.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below outlines the unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure totals across the provinces:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Province<\/th>Irregular<\/th>Unauthorised<\/th>Fruitless and Wasteful<\/th>Total<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
North West<\/td>35.28<\/td>33.22<\/td>2.65<\/td>71.15<\/td><\/tr>
Gauteng<\/td>28.62<\/td>17.56<\/td>7.14<\/td>53.32<\/td><\/tr>
Eastern Cape<\/td>39.21<\/td>8.97<\/td>1.45<\/td>49.63<\/td><\/tr>
Free State<\/td>13.13<\/td>25.46<\/td>4.82<\/td>43.41<\/td><\/tr>
Mpumalanga<\/td>4.56<\/td>8.86<\/td>1.85<\/td>15.27<\/td><\/tr>
KwaZulu-Natal<\/td>6.79<\/td>4.35<\/td>0.76<\/td>11.90<\/td><\/tr>
Northern Cape<\/td>3.15<\/td>7.10<\/td>1.01<\/td>11.26<\/td><\/tr>
Limpopo<\/td>4.18<\/td>4.47<\/td>0.78<\/td>9.43<\/td><\/tr>
Western Cape<\/td>1.73<\/td>0.98<\/td>0.06<\/td>2.77<\/td><\/tr>
South Africa<\/td>136.65<\/td>110.97<\/td>20.52<\/td>268.14<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s best-run province has three times less unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure than its closest competitor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":855631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[3796],"class_list":["post-860363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-national-treasury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860374,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860363\/revisions\/860374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}