City staff blamed for bad books

Joburg council employees are likely to take plenty of flak for what is expected to be yet another dismal audit outcome for the city.

The Times reported yesterday that city bosses were bracing themselves for another poor audit performance - a fourth consecutive qualified audit opinion.

In October the chairman of the group audit committee, Jocelyn Armstrong, warned during a council meeting that the country's richest municipality was unlikely to achieve a clean audit.

The minutes of the meeting reveal that councillors blamed city employees, particularly those in the finance department, for the municipality's poor performance.

During a meeting of the city's public accounts committee, Councillor Ntombizodwa Nxumalo said some employees did not take their jobs seriously and were not committed to achieving a clean audit.

She asked that such employees be penalised.

The accountability of the finance department's top management was said to be problematic.

Armstrong said officials in the finance department report direct to their line managers. She called for this system to be reviewed, allowing for direct reporting to the group finance committee.

Armstrong said that if Johannesburg was to improve its audit outcomes it must deal with its skills deficiencies, the primary obstacle to achieving a good audit report.

Municipalities, and provincial and national government departments, as well as state-owned entities, had set this year as the year in which they would achieve clean audits.