Clean audit won't fix roads

19 February 2016 - 03:03 By Penwell Dlamini

Ratepayers must start looking at the overall performance of their municipality and not base their opinion as to its competence only on audit outcomes - which do not adequately reflect the quality of service delivery.This was the advice of experts in local government taking part in a discussion at Wits University's Public Affairs Research Institute yesterday. The topic was about problems facing municipalities.Among the issues discussed was the "obsession" of local government politicians with achieving a clean audit report for their municipality irrespective of the quality of life of their citizens."The auditor-general does not measure service delivery. His office measures the degree to which municipalities account for their money," said Ivor Chipkin, the institute's executive director."The idea was that, if the financial management was getting better, that would have consequences on service delivery. The work that we do suggests that this might not be the case."He said the perception was that a municipality with a clean audit had a good service-delivery record."Citizens know service delivery in terms of the quality of the environment. Are streets clean and repaired; is there water in the tap; are there libraries and parks?"Mohammed Lorgat, the SA Local Government Association's national director of municipal audit support, agreed with Chipkin on the weight that should be given to audit outcomes but identified funding as the biggest problem for municipalities."Service delivery happens at local government level. Therefore the argument we have been putting to the Treasury is that we need a bigger budget to fulfil our mandate effectively."The allocation we get from the national government is specifically for providing free basic services for indigent communities."The problem is that the information that is being used to calculate these needs has not been updated regularly."The number of indigent people in the area might be much more than [can be supported with] what we get from the national government."..

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