SAMWU Condemns National Treasury Decision to Withold Municipal Equitable Share
17 December 2025
SAMWU Condemns National Treasury Decision to Withold Municipal Equitable Share
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) expresses its outrage and total rejection of the National Treasury’s reckless decision to freeze the December equitable share allocations for 75 municipalities across the country. This move is nothing short of an act of economic sabotage directed at the heart of the working class. By pulling this funding just days before the festive season, the National Treasury is effectively sentencing thousands of municipal workers to a December without salaries, bonuses, or the ability to provide for their families. It is a cruel and calculated assault that treats the livelihoods of workers as collateral damage in a bureaucratic war over balance sheets.
While SAMWU acknowledges and agrees with the National Treasury that many of the country’s municipalities are facing severe financial challenges, leading to the non-payment of statutory obligations such as salaries, pension contributions, and medical aid, we find the Treasury’s response completely illogical. It makes no sense to withhold the equitable share from municipalities that have already demonstrated extreme financial hardship. Instead of intervening to provide the necessary technical and financial support to stabilise these institutions, the National Treasury has chosen to compound the problem, effectively pushing struggling municipalities over the precipice.
Beyond the immediate suffering of workers, this decision serves as a death warrant for service delivery across the most vulnerable regions of our country. The equitable share is the lifeblood of municipal operations. Without it, taps will run dry, lights will go out, and refuse will pile up in our streets. To withhold these funds during the height of the festive season is to invite a humanitarian crisis, as municipalities will be left unable to pay for bulk water, electricity, or the basic materials required to maintain crumbling infrastructure. The Treasury is single-handedly creating the very collapse it claims to be preventing, and the brunt of this disaster will be felt by the poor and marginalized residents who rely on these essential services daily.
SAMWU further condemns the National Treasury for its consistent failure to offer genuine support to struggling municipalities, opting instead for a punitive tough love approach that solves nothing. For years, the national government has ignored the structural flaws in the local government funding model and the billions of Rands in debt owed to municipalities by national and provincial departments. It is the height of hypocrisy for the Treasury to invoke Section 216 against municipalities for financial mismanagement while doing nothing to compel other state organs to pay their municipal bills. This big stick approach ignores the root causes of the crisis and focuses solely on punishing those at the bottom of the hierarchy.
As SAMWU, demand the immediate and unconditional release of the withheld funds to ensure that workers are paid and services are maintained. If the National Treasury and the government at large are truly interested in fostering municipalities that work for residents and workers alike, they will cease being accomplices to a black Christmas for municipal workers. We will not stand by while our members are sacrificed at the altar of fiscal austerity.
Issued by SAMWU Secretariat
Dumisane Magagula
General Secretary
076 580 4029
Or
Nkhetheni Muthavhi
Deputy General Secretary
082 526 5224
Or
Papikie Mohale
National Media Officer
076 795 8670