Cape Town - Parliamentarians have expressed their anger and frustration with yet another poor audit outcome for the local government sphere.
Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke briefed parliamentary committees on the outcomes of the 2019/20 municipal audits and Covid-19 relief funds expenditure.
Maluleke found municipalities spent R26 billion in irregular expenditure, R14.4bn in unauthorised expenditure and R1bn on the use of consultants to compile financial statements, among other things.
IFP MP Narend Singh said the report revealed grand theft, grand corruption and grand mismanagement.
“This is something we have been hearing over and again, like a stuck record, in departments of grand mismanagement. Here we talk about local government,” Singh said.
“We need to develop and train cadres of financial officers that can be deployed to municipalities and departments, irrespective of political affiliation.”
Singh said it was deplorable that municipalities spent R1bn on consultants because they lacked the necessary skills.
“We have got to say what we are to do to turn the situation around every year when the AG and her team give us the same report and point out a few successes.
“It is of no help to us, the country and the taxpayers,” he said.
DA MP Haniff Hoosen said he was not surprised by the state of finances in local government.
“I was hopeful the situation would change. Unfortunately, it gets worse without fail. What is concerning is that very few people are held accountable for the situation we find ourselves in.”
Hoosen said there was lack of accountability when people mismanaged public funds because people did as they pleased and got away with it.
“Unless something significant is to be done as a matter of urgency, our country is to be finished,” he said.
EFF MP Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi said poor audits outcomes remained prevalent despite an increase in clean audits and a reduction in the number of disclaimers.
“Our hopes were high in terms of the Public Audit Act. Looting is the order of the day and is worse during Covid-19,” Mkhaliphi said.
DA MP Alf Lees described the audit outcomes as a constant movie rerun.
Lees said there were no competent officials, so consultants were hired in municipalities.
ANC MP Sisisi Tolashe said that although the audit outcome did not bring good news, there was a need for MPs, as public representatives, to find a solution.
“This tells all of us one story – that the country is burning,” she said. “We need to make sure that the president is aware of this.”
Tolashe said Maluleke and her team should tell MPs how they could resolve the problem.
“The report suggests very little or nothing is working. We need more solutions and brains than complaining,” she added.
Maluleke said her office had shared the reports with the president and the ministers of cooperative governance and traditional affairs and finance.
“We have formal engagement with them in the normal course of work,” she said.
Maluleke said there was a need for all to play an oversight role as much as possible.
However, she noted that the type of leadership that was deployed and appointed to specific roles defined how an institution was run.
“Without dealing with the quality of leadership in charge of institutions, we are not going to get it right,” she said.
Political Bureau