With regard to negotiating mandates, the North West province raised the following concerns in their negotiating mandates: - The Provincial Equitable Share (PES) formula in its allocation to provinces and municipalities needs to be reviewed; - The PES formula alone cannot be used in all aspects of allocation of budgets to provinces, departments and municipalities. Another formula or formulas of varying departments and municipalities should be used; - The allocation of budgets to municipalities in the North West should be done in consultation with the Province; and - The conditional grants allocated to the North West departments are insufficient for the work that needs to be carried out by the respective departments.