BC Metro haunted by irregular spending backlog

BUFFALO City Metro has disclosed a revised and consolidated irregular expenditure amount for the 2016-17 financial year of more than R300-million.

The bulk of this irregular expenditure, R269.6-million, is attributed to the last quarter of the financial year.

This new figure was disclosed at a recent council meeting by mayor Xola Pakati, who requested council note the new irregular expenditure amount of R357.7million declared in the annual financial statement for the 201617 year.

This is a huge increase in the year’s irregular spend from the R91.7-million disclosed to council in June for the first, second and third quarters of this financial year.

The amount was referred to the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (Mpac) for further action.

Mpac chairwoman Zameka Gajula refused to comment on the matter and said she had no mandate to speak to the media concerning the irregular expenditure.

DA councillor Geoff Walton said the amount was concerning.

“The total amount is of great concern.

“It is a substantial amount of money that should have been dealt with in previous financial years.

“There are fewer new cases of irregular expenditure and a lot of what we are dealing with is irregular expenditure from previous years,” he said.

Pakati has called for additional resource capacity to be recruited “to fast-track investigations” and “assist with full and effective reporting to overcome backlogs” of previous years of unauthorised, irregular or fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

He said this was needed even if it was implemented on a project basis.

“We are proposing that the office of the executive mayor and the municipal manager develop a process plan that will be tabled in the next council in response to the additional resource capacity which is required.”

Of the total amount of irregular spending, BCM management has reportedly initiated processes to investigate R38.4-million of the spending.

Pakati said in some cases, processes were at an advanced stage. “In other instances, external services such as forensic investigations will be sourced and once these are concluded, management will submit a report to Mpac with action steps taken by management in light of the outcomes of the investigations, so Mpac is able to consider these and recommend back to council.”

Just more than R112-million of the disclosed amount is still under legal review.

“It is hoped that this process will be completed within a period of two months and a report be ready for submission by management to Mpac,” Pakati said. —