Salga concerned over weak financial reports from municipalities

Published Aug 2, 2022

Share

Durban — The SA Local Government Association (Salga) hosted an engagement session with various municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday aimed at ensuring they submit credible, accurate, reliable and compliant annual finance statements (AFS) through clean administration.

The Salga is concerned about the weak financial controls at municipalities in the province.

The session, which took place at The Station in Durban, included chief financial officers and municipal officials involved in the AFS.

Chartered Institute of Government Finance, Audit and Risk Officers chairperson, Sibusiso Zakwe said the recent findings by the auditor-general had highlighted serious deficiencies in government.

He said poor governance, instability, lack of knowledge and disregard of the law by councillors and under-qualified staff have been one of the problems.

“We need to try and do more to change this situation and bring about the change that is needed in AG’s report,” said Zakwe.

The municipalities will have to submit their financial statements by August 31. Furthermore, one of the issues that was raised during the session was that municipal management interferes with internal auditors’ work and there are often disagreements between internal auditors and the municipal management.

Mseni Ntombela from Salga said they support these initiatives because they are all about good governance and service delivery.

Amanda Botha from the Accounting Standards Board took the municipal officials dealing with finance, auditors and the chief financial officers present through new policies in accounting that were effective from April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023.

Daily News