Joint bid to tackle oversight woes

PARLIAMENTARY committees that have an interest in the affairs of municipalities are coming together to take a closer look into the finances of the local government sphere.

The standing committee on the auditor-general, the standing committee on public accounts and the co-operative governance portfolio committee want to work together to tackle oversight problems in the municipalities.

This emerged on Friday at the meeting of the standing committee on the auditor-general joint meeting when outgoing Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu briefed them on the 2018/19 municipal audit reports.

Makwetu said unlike in past years, when they were preoccupied with analysing the number of types of audits municipalities and their entities obtained, his 2018/19 report appreciated assets, liabilities, revenue, expenditure and disclosures that were required to be made in financial statements.

He noted that people entrusted to manage limited resources in councils did not do a good job of it and others were not trained properly to handle massive volumes of transactions.

In his report, Makwetu said municipalities had R226 billion in revenue, which excluded equitable share and conditional grants, but not all was recoverable.

He said the amount was a direct charge for services rendered such as delivery of water, rates and services as well as electricity sold.

The report showed that the national government financed municipalities through equitable share grants to the tune of R55bn.

There was R2.01bn fruitless and wasteful expenditure, R11.98bn unauthorised expenditure and R8.5bn expenditure on infrastructure yet there was R317bn infrastructure assets.

A total of 34% of municipalities ended the financial year with a deficit of R6.29bn, and R1.26bn was spent on consultants.

The irregular expenditure increased from R25.2bn to R32.06bn.

Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said the dim state of municipal finances had been in existence for the longest time.

“It requires proactive action by the three committees,” Hlengwa said.

He also said there was a need for introspection by legislative oversight bodies on whether they did sufficient oversight. “Otherwise we will continue lamenting receiving the same picture time and time again,” he said.

Hlengwa said the placement of troubled municipalities under administration had been inconsistent and had not helped improve the situation.

Cogta portfolio committee chairperson Faith Muthambi echoed his sentiments, saying their role was to set the tone at the top.