Pretoria – All municipalities in Gauteng have received unqualified audit opinions on their financial statements.
This was according to the Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu, who delivered the 2015/16 reports of the 263 municipalities in Pretoria on Wednesday.
"I think that is something that needs to be commended," Makwetu said.
The report showed that the City of Tshwane remained stagnant with an unqualified opinion with findings.
While the city demonstrated an improvement in performance reporting, Makwetu said "there were repeat findings on material misstatements in the financial statements and non-compliance with legislation".
The repeat findings were attributed to "inadequate review processes by finance officials and inadequate monitoring of compliance with supply chain management legislation," according to the report.
Commenting on the performance of the province in general, he said: "To enable the province to improve its audit outcomes the political leadership should hold the administrative leadership accountable for the institutionalisation of internal controls and basic financial management practices."
Tshwane was among the three municipalities, where there were no approved water infrastructure maintenance policies, the report found.
The other two were Joburg and Lesedi.
"These weaknesses could have an adverse impact on these municipalities' ability to deliver key basic services," the report said.
The report further found that a large-scale infrastructure projects such as the integrated rapid public transport network at the metros had generally been successfully implemented and goods and services were received for the money spent.
"However, some quality issues were identified during site visits, such as the deterioration of bus lanes due to a lack of maintenance and the use of poor-quality materials in the construction of lanes at the City of Tshwane metro," the report said.
The report further revealed that not paying sufficient attention to supply chain management and performance led to three municipalities losing their clean audit status of the previous year.
Those municipality were Ekurhuleni, Sedibeng and Mogale cities.
Only the Midval could hold on to its clean audit status.
"Midval is commended for obtaining a clean audit outcome in 2015/16 and for sustaining this outcome for the last three years. This was as a result of the municipality institutionalising a number of best practices, which could be replicated across the province...," the report said.
Provinces with the highest proportion of municipalities with clean audit opinions were the Western Cape (80%), Kwa-Zulu Natal (18%) and the Eastern Cape at 16 %.
The worst performing provinces were the North West, the Northen Cape and the Free State. A number of municipalities in those provinces received disclaimer and adverse opinions audits.