It is deeply concerning that nearly R3 billion of taxpayers’ money was either spent irregularly or wasted by Mpumalanga municipalities in the 2018/2019 financial year alone.
Information contained in the latest Auditor General’s (AG) Report shows that for the 2018/2019 financial year, Mpumalanga municipalities incurred:
- R 1 billion in irregular expenditure
- R1.2 billion in unauthorised expenditure and
- R709 million in wasteful expenditure
The AG also raised a concern that he was not able to make an audit or an opinion of four municipalities (disclaimed audit) because of lack of proper documents. These municipalities are:
- Lekwa
- Victor Khanye
- Dipaleseng and
- Dr. Pixley ka Isaka Seme
This means that in the 2018/19 financial year there were 4 municipalities which received a disclaimed audit finding, as opposed to 1 municipality being disclaimed in 2017/18. This is a concerning regression.
It must also be noted that only five (5) municipalities were thoroughly audited in the province (got unqualified audit with findings) as they gave the AG all required documents. These are:
- Ehlanzeni district municipality
- Bushbuckridge
- Nkomazi
- Steve Tshwete and
- Chief Albert Luthuli
The AG has identified the following reasons as why Mpumalanga municipalities still fail to get clean audits: lack of effective leadership; lack of proper record keeping; lack of daily and monthly controls and lack of review and monitor controls.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) suggests that in order to improve on these Audit Outcomes, the provincial government needs to stop playing lip service and start addressing basic controls within their municipalities.
Addressing all the reasons mentioned by the AG above is the first step towards ensuring that municipalities submit quality annual financial statements to the AG for auditing. It’s a step towards eradicating corruption, and ensuring that taxpayer money is used for its intended purposes and to the benefit of the masses.
For as long as there is a lack of political will to institute consequence management, a lack of fraud risk indicators, little competencies of bid specification committees, socio-economic prosperity in the province will remain stagnant.
The DA urges the AG to use the Public Audit Amendment Bill to hold accountable those who use taxpayers’ money irregularly – as opposed to merely pointing out irregularities and indiscretions. This is a necessary step considering that the ANC has shown in so many instances that it is incapable of holding its officials accountable.