The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) says it referring the Auditor General’s report to the Public Protector for investigation – after it was revealed yesterday that only 18 of the country’s 257 municipalities managed to attain a clean audit.
Samwu General Secretary, Koena Ramotlou, said: “There are people who have used municipalities as a breeding ground for corruption. We cannot accept that 92% of municipalities cannot be able to get a clean audit.”
Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu released his local government audits for the 2017/18 financial year yesterday, and not a single municipality in the Free State, Limpopo and the North West received a clean audit.
Makwetu said only one municipality in Gauteng obtained a clean audit, and 12 of the 18 municipalities with clean audits were in the Western Cape.
Irregular expenditure across municipalities amounted to R25 billion, Makwetu’s report said.
“On the basis of the findings of the AG, we must allow the PP to follow the money. We must recoup monies that was there so the PP can have remedial action taken against them,” Ramotlou said.
He added that there was no need to congratulate those municipalities which managed to attain clean audit status because they are supposed to be receiving clean audits anyway.
Read More: https://www.insidepolitic.org/lack-of-accountability-fuels-poor-local-gov-audit-results-agsa/
Municipalities splashed some R907 million on consultants, money that could have been channelled towards service delivery and better remuneration of municipal workers, Ramotlou said.
Samwu pointed out that municipalities in Limpopo alone spent over R170 million on financial consultants despite these municipalities having Chief Financial Officers (CFO) on their payrolls.
“We therefore demand that all contracts of CFOs in identified municipalities should be reviewed.”
Makwetu indicated that 74 municipalities did not thoroughly follow on allegations of fraud, financial and supply chain management misconduct.
Samwu said the failure by “municipalities to follow up and investigate such allegations discourages workers from reporting instances of corruption and fraud as they know that nothing will be done by authorities.”
This failure also protects the perpetrators from prosecution as they know that municipalities have become free for all to do as they please, Samwu added.
The union wants individuals to be held “personally liable for failure to comply, particularly those responsible for incurring fruitless and wasteful expenditure.”
Government Not Aware
Earlier, Samwu said that more than 30 municipalities in South Africa have indicated that they are unable to pay worker salaries.
The union said it held a meeting with new Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and her deputy, Parks Tau, to highlight the problems plaguing councils and were told government was not aware that workers were not getting paid.
