The lack of clear national direction on how municipalities should go about planning and budgeting leads to a slow pace of basic service delivery. This situation has prompted the significant need for transformation of municipal planning and budgeting of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) programme, which would result in the improvement of basic service delivery. It is arguable that the National MIG unit must systematically establish a national strategy for basic services which will include the national priority, demonstrate capacity building at both national and local levels and fully own the MIG database at national level in order to influence the manner in which municipalities plan and budget for their basic services. The aim of this article is to examine the possibility check for transformation of municipal planning and budgeting to improve basic service delivery. There is a large body of literature on municipal infrastructur