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This shows how much of this municipality's income is from its own activities that it bills for, and how much is paid to it by national and provincial government.

Municipalities are supposed to be able to support themselves financially - to fund the services they provide from the rates paid by the local residents.

A heavy reliance on outside funding is a cause for concern.

This shows how much income this municipality receives from each local source.

Transfers is income that the municipality receives from other parts of government.

This shows how much income this municipality receives from each type of transfer.

Each type of transfer is intended for an express purpose, and should not be used for anything else.

This shows how much income this municipality receives as their equitable share.

Equitable share comes from the taxes paid to national government, and is intended to ensure that no one in South Africa shall go without their basic needs being met.

Provincial and national government also receive equitable share to fund the services that are provided by those spheres of government.

Conditional grants are money paid to municipalities and provinces to achieve specific outcomes.

This might be to ensure money is available for building infrastructure, or ensuring staff at the municipality receive the training needed to perform their job.

This shows how much money has been allocated to the municipality for each grant that they are receiving, how much has been paid to the municipality so far, and how much they have spent.

Provincial transfers are income from the government of the province where this municipality is located.

This income could be for services that are provided by the municipality under an agreement with the province, when it is actually the provincial government's responsibility. This can happen when the municipality is better-placed to provide that service.

It could also be for conditional grants paid by the province for disaster relief or other purposes.

This shows how much income the municipality receives from each provincial department.

Municipalities must plan for the income they can realistically receive.

Unrealistic plans result in disappointing service delivery.

On the time series we can see whether the municipality regularly over- or under-estimates how much money it will receive.

By looking at where the differences in planned and actual income occurred, we can start seeing whether it was bad planning on unforeseeable circumstances.

Employee-related costs are typically the largest portion of operating expenditure, but they should not grow so large that they threaten the sustainability of the operating budget.

The normal range for this indicator is between 25% - 40% of total operating expenditure. Municipalities must guard against spending too much on staff while also making sure they have the people they need to deliver services effectively.

Private contractors are sometimes needed for certain work, but they are usually more expensive than municipal staff. This should be kept to a minimum and efforts should be made to provide services in-house, where possible.

This measure is normally between 2 percent and 5 percent of total operating expenditure.

Running a municipality and delivering services costs money.

By looking at how much money a municipality planned to spend, and how much they actually spent, we can understand more of what happened during the year and what challenges they might have had.

A municipality might underspend - spend less than planned - if they did not get as much income as they planned, or if they did not manage their work properly. There might also have been other external disruptions.

By looking at which items the municipality spent more on, and which they spent less on, we can get a sense of which services might have had funding challenges, or disruptions that slowed work in that area.

Some kinds of spending is also more flexible than others - if the municipality has less money than planned and has payment that can not be adapted to circumstances, the more flexible spending areas will have to suffer.

Your municipal bill is made up of property rates, basic electricity levy, electricity consumption charge, basic water levy, water consumption charge, sanitation, refuse removal and ‘other’.

The property values, water consumption and electricity consumption of a household in an income category may differ from municipality to municipality.

A middle income household use as base a property value of R700 000, consumption of 1 000 kWh electricity and 30kl water.

The bill is made up of property rates, service charges for electricity, water, sanitation and refuse removal and various other charges which are typically small.

Minimum service standards may differ between municipalities. These standards form part of the municipality’s budget which is consulted with citizens in the period 1 April to 31 May each year.

The statistical standard set for affordable income households is a base property value of between R500 000 and R700 000, consumption of 500 kWh electricity and 25kl water.

A basic levy is a fixed monthly charge that does not change with the amount of service consumed. Not all municipalities use basic levies.

Free basic service (FBS) is defined as the minimum amount of basic levels of services, provided on a day to day basis, sufficient to cover or cater for the basic needs of the poor households.

Various sector departments have set minimum standards outlining basic amount of services or quantity to be supplied to the indigents with regards to water, energy, sanitation and refuse removal.

Only indigent households qualify for FBS and the programme is solely intended to assist them. Municipalities subject all applications to means tests to determine whether households applying meet the criteria set by their municipality to qualify for indigent status.

There are different categories of subsidies as set out by the various indigent by-laws/policies of the municipalities. In some municipalities, households qualify for 100% subsidies while other qualify for less that 100% depending on the criteria set.

The bill represented in the graph reflects what it costs the municipality to render the services to indigent households, not what each indigent household needs to pay as these costs are covered by the Equitable Share grant allocation to the municipality.