As municipalities face mounting financial pressure and rising demand for Free Basic Services, Munsoft is calling for stronger governance of indigent registers to ensure municipal support reaches households that genuinely qualify while protecting the long-term sustainability of local government finances.
“Every rand wrongly allocated to an ineligible household is a rand taken away from a family that genuinely needs support,” says Nicholas Maweni, CEO of Munsoft.
“Indigent management is no longer simply a back-office administrative function. It is a frontline governance tool that plays a critical role in protecting both vulnerable communities and municipal finances.”
According to Munsoft, weak verification processes, outdated beneficiary records, duplicate registrations, false income declarations and unreported changes in household circumstances continue to undermine the effectiveness of indigent support programmes.
These weaknesses contribute to avoidable revenue leakage, place additional pressure on already constrained municipal budgets and reduce the resources available to households that rely on municipal assistance.
Through Free Basic Services, municipalities provide qualifying households with access to essential services including water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal. Munsoft says these programmes rely on indigent registers that are accurate, regularly verified and aligned with municipal policy to ensure support reaches those who need it most.
Maweni says municipalities need to move beyond treating indigent registration as a once-off administrative exercise. “Trust must be supported by verification,” he says.
“Approval should never be viewed as the end of the process. Municipalities should continuously review indigent status, verify beneficiary information and monitor consumption in line with their own policies to ensure support reaches the households it was intended to serve.”
Without ongoing verification, municipalities risk maintaining outdated records, continuing to subsidise households that no longer meet policy requirements and weakening the integrity of one of local government’s most important social protection programmes. At the same time, genuine beneficiaries may not receive the level of support intended through Free Basic Services.
Maweni believes strengthening indigent register governance is essential to protecting both municipal finances and public confidence.
“Protecting vulnerable households and protecting municipal finances are not competing priorities. Strong indigent management ensures limited public resources are directed where they are needed most, strengthens public trust and supports sustainable service delivery.”
As municipalities work to balance increasing service delivery demands with constrained financial resources, Munsoft believes strengthening the integrity of indigent registers should be treated as a governance priority rather than simply an administrative exercise.