Kouga’s books get clean bill of health – again

THE Kouga Municipality’s books have again received a clean bill of health from the auditor-general, with another unqualified audit.

Municipal manager Sydney Fadi said this has encouraged staff at the municipality to work even harder to try to achieve a clean audit, which is an unqualified audit without matters of emphasis.

A clean audit is the best opinion that can be attained by an entity because it means all accounting practices are followed and record-keeping is in order.

The latest audit opinion – for 2015-16 – is Kouga’s third consecutive unqualified audit.

Fadi said the only issues that stood between Kouga and a clean audit were not having a performance management plan, as well as irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and not registering all of its assets.

“Those are things we need to fix. We want to start on a clean slate in January.”

The municipality has not yet received the physical report from the AG and will only know then how much irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure was recorded.

“The AG said municipalities that receive unqualified audits normally regress the following financial year.

“This audit is encouraging for all the officials in Kouga. We have come a long way since 2012 – it was not easy,” Fadi said.

Chief financial officer Selwyn Thys is in charge of the municipality’s finances and accounting.

Meanwhile, the municipality is struggling with residents’ unpaid debts, which stand at R149-million.

Mayor Elza van Lingen said she was not sure whether the entire amount would be recouped. She said: “R82-million of this debt is older than a year and will [be] difficult to recover.”

The municipality owes its service providers R87-million.