Africa-Press – South-Africa. The EFF says it is alarmed by a recent report by Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke which revealed that of the 257 municipalities in the country, only 38 had a clean audit.
It has now called for measures to be put in place to hold officials to account for the mismanagement of funds.
On Wednesday, Maluleke tabled the report to the Standing Committee on the Auditor-General, revealing that during the 2021/22 financial year, only 14.7% of the municipalities achieved a clean audit.
She attributed this poor outcome to a skills shortage, lack of accountability, and leadership.
Startled by these revelations, the EFF declared its support for the Auditor-General’s office on Thursday, saying she must continue to use her powers to expose corruption and prosecute those found guilty.
“The EFF will continue to give its full support to the Office of the Auditor-General as she continues to expose corruption through her fearless auditing and reporting.
“We call on her to fully exercise her powers to have the corruption culprits prosecuted timeously.”
The party also called on “responsible executives to institute misconduct inquiries against all the officials responsible for this gross incompetence and negligence in managing public funding”.
Of the affected municipalities, only two in Gauteng made the cut, Midvaal and the City of Ekurhuleni, which ANC-EFF MMCs have led following the ousting of DA councillors.
The EFF has been vocal about administrative concerns, which include the non-payment of service providers in Ekurhuleni and the hijacking of municipal houses.
News24 previously reported the party’s Gauteng provincial chairperson and MMC for finance, Nkululeko Dunga, made the public aware of a R300 million expenditure on waste compactors.
In May, Dunga briefed the media about the various issues impacting the delivery of services in the metro, saying the absence of 71 compactors out of 103 was affecting waste removal.
Acknowledging and supporting the Auditor-General’s findings, the EFF said the report verified the evidence it had gathered independently and referred explicitly to a criminal case it opened in May for the missing compactors.
The EFF said it would open more cases as it continued to audit the departments it was responsible for in the metro.
The departments the party is in charge of are finance, water, sanitation and energy; transport planning, roads and stormwater, health and social development; and environment and waste management services.
Meanwhile, the SA Government Association (Salga) advised municipalities, which received poor audit outcomes, to replicate those that provided “acceptable” results.
It said 55% of metros could produce “trustworthy” and “credible” financial statements – that is 142 municipalities which are responsible for more than 66% of the overall government budget of R530 billion.
“We call on the 45% of municipalities, which received poor audit outcomes, to work hard to turn around municipal financial management and governance to achieve the same outcomes that have been achieved by the majority of municipalities.”
Salga called for sterner measures to be taken against municipalities which failed to submit financial statements, saying those who mismanaged funds should be held accountable.
It said it aimed to make “the late submission of financial statements for audit purposes a thing of the past”.
“Equally, there must be a significant reduction and eventual elimination of irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure in the remaining financial years of this term.”
Applauding the efforts of the Auditor-General’s office, Salga offered its assistance to address four areas of concern – performance planning, monitoring, and reporting – outlined by the report.
The organisation said it would “continue working with them in an effort towards improving the state of financial management and governance in local government and also applauds the AGSA’s [Auditor-General of South Africa] continued efforts to highlight the state of local government.”
Salga added it would assign its local and provincial leaders to municipalities “to advise and support them”.
“We will also mobilise additional capacity to provide support to municipalities, including experienced former councillors and mayors who left good records of leadership in the municipalities they led, to assist in the support and empowerment of councillors to effectively perform their oversight and leadership roles,” it said.
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