Council unhappy with poor, inconsistent budget report

The Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality council is unhappy with the mayor’s quarterly budget monitoring report compiled by the municipal manager and CFO, saying it does not reflect the real financial state of the municipality.

This was after the CFO, Paul Mahlasela, standing in for the MM, Nokuthula Zondani, tabled the report at a virtual council meeting recently.

DA councillor Zuko Mandile said the report was inconsistent. Mandile said EMLM was not collecting enough revenue, which the MM and CFO were failing to implement as a council resolution.

“... nothing gets done. They are failing administratively,” Mandile said.

“The smart metre programme being [rolled out], they promised us it will bring in R32m revenue but the smart metres have been rolled out and there has been no positive effect.”

Mandile said the financial report did not include some of the departments that owed the municipality money. “He [the CFO] is also raising an issue that they will target households that are owing, leaving behind the departments that owe the municipality millions of rand,” Mandile said.

Hokolo said he had raised the issue of rental owed in a previous council meeting, at which the CFO had indicated to have knowledge of who was not paying.

“The councillors owing the municipality owe R462,000 for municipal rates.

“When did they start owing the municipality? “This document has been changed because it previously had the names of councillors.

“It is something that has been extracted from existing documents because there is no councillor that can owe R462, 000.”

The Independents’ Debbie Stellenberg said the CFO and the MM were supposed to have revised the documents and sent them back to be corrected.

She said the council should not have tippexed financial documents.

“In the key performing area for budget and treasury, they said their target archived is 78%, but we have so many challenges, how is that possible?”

The DA’s Tokkie Deysel said the recommendations from the finance standing committee were not reflected in the report.

Deysel called for a forensic investigation.

“We have decided to sit down with all the political heads and the department directors and clarify the financial state and as an institution, we should get together to discuss exactly what is going on,” Deysel said.

Budget and treasury portfolio head Unathi Galada said the finance standing committee had noted the recommendations sent to the mayoral committee.

“We have criticised the quality of the report and said let us move away from the issue of copy and paste,” Galada said.

“The report does not speak on what is happening in the municipality.”

He said it had been sent late and that they had asked for every expenditure to have a source.