Cape Town - How the office of the Auditor-General of SA (AGSA) handles issues of maladministration and wasteful expenditure in under-performing Western Cape municipalities dominated a briefing on local government audit outcomes to the legislature’s standing committee.
The session was a follow up to the 2020/21 auditor-general report which showed that the municipalities of Beaufort West, Kannaland, and Laingsburg received qualified audits, while Prince Albert Municipality regressed from an unqualified with no findings outcome to an unqualified with findings outcome.
The audit also found that 22 of the Western Cape’s municipalities had received clean audits, representing more than half of the clean audits awarded across the country.
Committee members Nosipho Makamba-Botya (EFF) and Matlhodi Maseko (DA) asked AGSA Western Cape business leader Sangeeta Kallen about whether the consequence management measures recommended by AGSA were enforceable.
Kallen said the reasons for the less optimal results were often due to the inability of municipalities to attract sufficiently skilled staff to ensure financial accountability as well as occasional political instability on the governing councils.
She told members of the legislature that they had engaged with municipal managers, and that they were comfortable with the path forward for these municipalities.
Committee member Cameron Dugmore (ANC) wanted to know whether the AGSA had taken advantage of new legislation allowing them to make recommendations with regard to furthering investigations against officials alleged to be guilty of material irregularities.
Kallen said once they identify a material irregularity, they raised it with the accounting officer with a request for an investigation and disciplinary action on non-compliance to recover the monies and stop further losses.
Reviewing the discussion, committee chairperson Derrick America (DA) said while the results of the municipal audit were generally good, the provincial government could not afford to sit on its laurels and must strive for perfection.
“I look forward to working with the provincial department of Local Government and the AGSA to ensure that this is achieved,” he said.