Ramaphosa must act on local government rot

The depressing revelations by auditor-general Kimi Makwetu this week are further confirmation that our problems are much bigger than we realise and that we have a serious governance crisis at local government level. Releasing the latest municipal audit results for the 2017/2018 financial year, Makwetu revealed that of the 257 municipalities, only 18 produced clean audits — down from 33 in the previous year. If this does not prove that something is fundamentally wrong with the kind of people at the helm of local councils, then nothing ever will.

Of major concern should be the irregular expenditure of R25.2bn in the same period. If this is not speedily dealt with, it could derail any plan that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government have of fixing the mess caused by the deployment of incompetent cronies to these councils during the tenure of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.

As worrisome as the revelations are, they should not come as a huge surprise. Horror stories about the dire state of local government finances are well documented.

Remember Simon Mofokeng? He was the mayor of Emfuleni in Gauteng who was exposed two years ago for spending more than R1.7m on KFC, Nando’s and expensive hotel stays. A few years earlier we had Zukisa Faku, then mayor of the Buffalo City metro in the Eastern Cape, who used her council-issued credit card to go shopping for clothes for herself during an official trip to Istanbul.

If Ramaphosa and his minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, fail to pay more attention to governance and financial probity in the sphere of local government, the small gains being made at national government level will all be undone. To fix this mess, the first thing we need to do is to relook at the kind of leadership we appoint to run these municipalities. We need mayors, councillors and municipal managers who possess the highest standards of integrity and honesty.

If the truth be told, our municipalities have become popular and happy hunting grounds for looters and thieves. Anyone who doubts this need only wait till the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture starts focusing on municipalities.