Department of Water and Sanitation blames municipal debt, budget cuts for huge debt
28 February 2018
Cape Town - A full parliamentary inquiry into the finances of the Department of Water and Sanitation has been instituted after it conceded to being billions of rand in debt.
The department presented itself before Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday where its overdraft, running into billions of rand, was the centre of focus.
The committee gave attention to the irregular expenditure reported by the Auditor-General in the 2016/17 financial year and an overdraft of R2.7bn in the department's Water Trading Entity account for the same financial year.
The department blamed the overdraft on the failure of municipalities to pay for services received coupled with significant budgetary cuts totalling R2.6bn in the 2016/17 financial year.