By: Abigail Visagie
The Portfolio Committee on Corporate Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), chaired by former Minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize, lambasted the Free State for being the worst performing province in the country when it comes to financial management and accountability.
Mkhize lashed out at provinces municipalities during a pilot oversight model visit by the parliamentary committee at the Sun Windmill Casino in Bloemfontein, where mayors from the various municipalities converged to give account on the financial affairs within their respective municipalities.
The former health minister revealed that it was brought to the attention of the portfolio committee that although various adverse financial findings and subsequent recommendations given by the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA), several municipalities continue to disregard the findings and thus do not resolve the AGSA’s outcomes.
AGSA detected that the Free State is the worst-performing province with a total of 16 municipalities with unfunded budgets, over R4.2 billion in unauthorised expenditure, repeated disclaimer audit opinions and widespread failure to submit financial statements on time.
“Various targeted municipalities not only need to take accountability but need to be monitored, and a change should be seen in terms of the auditing outcomes,” said Mkhize.
SCOPA Free State chairperson, Oupa Khoabane, echoed Mkhize’s sentiments adding that: “municipalities alongside the provincial government should be reminded that accountability is paramount and that municipal resources are managed effectively and appropriately.”
As the only metropolitan in the province, the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality (MMM) was urged to be exemplary to other municipalities when it comes to financial management as the best resourced municipality.
MMM’s City Manager Sello More retorted by acknowledging some the metro’s financial shortcoming, while giving assurance that measures were being out in place to curb financial irregularities. He highlighted MMM’s issues with employees working overtime as one of the major issues that have burdened the municipality, but remains hopeful that
“In terms of inadequate overtime controls, there have been consequences, but we noticed that we cannot place a lot of resources on overtime issues as it is highly costly for the city.
“We are going to enforce compliance and also ensure that there will be a minimum overtime under the shift system, which will not go beyond 40 hours,” said More.
More stated that MMM has been granted three months to attend to the questions put to the municipality by the committee and gave assurance that the questions will be answered within the prescribed period.
