Only seven municipalities in KZN received clean audits: auditor-general

Auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke has cited poor governance and noncompliance with the law as the main reasons behind the regression of many municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.

Briefing members of the KZN legislature on the state of provincial municipalities on Thursday, Maluleke said 90% of local government budget is not spent in accordance with the law.

“Only 13 out of 54 municipalities comply with the law, the rest are not complying,” she said.

uMsinga, uMshwathi, Umvoti and Richmond improved to join uMlalazi, uMhlathuze and King Cetshwayo to receive unqualified audit outcomes with no findings.

She said eight municipalities received qualified audit reports in 2023/24, including Msunduzi. Maluleke said Msunduzi had R900m in irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure and it was the third consecutive year it had received a qualified audit.

Nothing was said about eThekwini municipality, which received an unqualified audit opinion.

Maluleke said Msinga, Umshwathi, Richmond and Umvoti received clean audits.

“While we are happy some municipalities have improved from unqualified audits to clean audits there is room for improvement,” she said.

Maluleke said anything other than a clean audit is regarded as poor governance.

“We are concerned Ukhahlamba municipality dropped from a clean audit to an unqualified audit, but the team who assessed them is convinced they will bounce back,” she said.

Maluleke said those with unqualified audits become too comfortable and there is danger of regressing. “For example, Umdoni and Nongoma have moved from unqualified to qualified — which is not a good thing,” she said.

Umzinyathi and Umzumbe were in the adverse category while Endumeni is in the disclaimer zone. 

“It is absolutely intolerable anyone should get away with having a disclaimer or an opinion. An adverse opinion is not much better because it simply says the people in charge of running the public resources are neglecting their duty to act as stewards.

“They're not able to show what they've done with the money that was put in their hands. And if there are repeat offences in this regard, it does continue to diminish the trust between citizens and their leaders,” she said.

The provincial leader of government business, Siboniso Duma, said while they noted improvement in some municipalities more still needs to be done.

Duma said the state of affairs of provincial municipalities was looking up.

“As the province, we lost more than R20bn through the Treasury's budget cuts, which makes us operate on a shoestring budget,” he said.

Duma said the province was battling a shortage of resources.

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