Charles Molele
Ekurhuleni Executive Mayor Mzwanidle Masina says the auditor general’s decision to give the metro yet another clean audit was a clear demonstration of the city’s commitment to good governance.
The city’s audit committee tabled the AG’s report for 2017-2018 at its first ordinarycouncil meeting on Thursday.
Masina welcomed the auditor general’s report, saying this was the result of a commitment to good governance,ruthless consequence management and a proactive performance monitoring.
“We have continued to display our commitment to good governance andaccountability following the AG’s 2016/2017 financial year audit.
Our ability to decrease irregular expenditure by 42% allows us to further serviceour impoverished communities and amplify our service delivery in line withour pro-poor Government stance,” said Masina.
“We will continue to cut irregular expenditure and maintain a zerotolerance approach to fruitless, wasteful and unauthorised expenditure.Good governance allows the City to attract much needed investment, which will allow us to grow economic activity in the City of Ekurhuleni.
”The AG report found a significant improvement in the overall performance of the city’s finances and said Ekurhuleni did not incur fruitless, wasteful and authorized expenditure in the 2017-2018 financial year.
The report also found a decrease of R198 million (42%) in irregular expenditure from R472.6 to R274.5 million.
The city’s audit committee said it was satisfied with the great improvement of the city’s performance and acknowledged the achievement of a clean audit opinion for the 2017/18 financial year on the performance information.
Concerns over the lack of improvement in the quality of the annual financial statements submitted and poor document management processes in finance were highlighted on the report.
“We committed to implementing the AG’s recommendations expeditiously. The City remains committed to transparency, accountability and clean governance. The citizens of Ekurhuleni remain at the centre of our efforts as an administration. Our fiscal management must be dedicated to producing the maximum output of quality service delivery to our people,”said Masina.