Still blowing cash

04 June 2015 - 02:13 By Babalo Ndenze, Sipho Masombuka and Neo Goba

The government is going ahead with its plan to remove officials and political leaders of under-performing municipalities. This is despite the fact that, generally, municipalities have shown a steady improvement in financial management.Auditor-general Kimi Makwetu briefed the media in Cape Town yesterday on the local government audit outcomes for 2013-2014. He was accompanied by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan.Makwetu said there was a favourable comparison between the latest outcomes and those in 2007-2008, when only 2% of municipalities had clean audits."That situation has improved to the current period, where we have 17% of municipalities and entities having achieved unqualified with no significant findings."That 2% of 2007-2008 was a mere seven municipalities and entities to the current 58, which is represented by the 17%. Our view is that this is moving in a positive direction."Gordhan said his department was asking provincial MECs to ensure that councils institute disciplinary action against "negligent and under-performing officials".About 36% of municipalities received disclaimers. This is when the auditor-general cannot express an opinion on the financial statements due to limited and/or unavailable information to substantiate financial transactions.Mwakwetu raised concerns about certain municipalities in the Free State, Limpopo and North West that did not receive a single clean audit opinion.The worst-performing municipalities in these provinces are characterised by high levels of unauthorised, wasteful and irregular expenditure. These costs run into billions of rands due to disregard for procurement processes, incompetence and failure to punish those liable.North West municipalities recorded unauthorised expenditure of R1.8-billion, irregular expenditure of R1.8-billion and wasteful expenditure of R68.8-million.The worst culprits were Matlosana, Naledi, Madibeng, Rustenburg and Moretele.Municipalities in the Free State racked up unauthorised expenditure of R2.3-billion, irregular expenditure of R934-million and wasteful expenditure of R272-million.Limpopo municipalities blew R882-million in unauthorised expenditure, irregular expenditure of R818-million and wasteful expenditure of R31-million...

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