The department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs has managed to reduce the number of dysfunctional municipalities from 66 in 2023 to 38 in 2025. Last year, the minister of COGTA, Velenksosini Hlabisa had given the country's dysfunctional municipalities less than 24 months to return to normalcy. Part of National government's broad intervention has been to put several of these ailing municipalities under administration and establish the Ministerial Development Programme - which has so far visited 80 municipalities. Zara Groenewald reports…