‘No bonuses or salary increases’ for errant municipal bosses: KZN MEC

KwaZulu-Natal cooperative governance MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube has vowed that managers at municipalities which received poor audit outcomes will not get bonuses or salary increases.

In a statement following the release of the Auditor-General's audit outcome for municipalities‚ Dube-Ncube lamented that while KZN was the second-best performing province behind the Western Cape‚ there was a decline in the number of municipalities that received a clean audit. And she had promised harsh action against municipal bosses.

"We have already taken a decision that there will be no bonuses or salary increases for all those that received poor audit outcomes‚ and we will be monitoring that bonuses and increments are not paid as a ritual but reward excellent performance. We can’t pay bonuses when the municipalities' financial books are in shambles.

“Our message to poorly performing municipalities is clear: there must be harsh consequences for poor municipal performance and we want those responsible units and officials held accountable‚" said Dube-Ncube.

Dube-Ncube also lauded the province for still holding the record for the most municipalities with good audit outcomes in the country. “While we have 48 relatively good audit outcomes‚ we want to avoid complacency. Hence we are treating the six where we have not done well as a wake-up call and we want clean audits as a non-negotiable for all KZN municipalities‚” said Dube-Ncube.

The audit outcomes of the country's 263 municipalities revealed that only 49 councils achieved clean audits. The Western Cape sits at the top of provinces with the highest proportion of municipalities with clean audit opinions with 80%‚ followed by KZN at 18% and the Eastern Cape at 16%.