THE Auditor General has urged mayors and municipal managers to work towards better audit outcomes. The City’s clean audit performance has regressed since 2018/19 financial year. l FILE: AYANDA NDAMANE/African News Agency/ANA
THE auditor-general (AG)’s report has flagged the City’s irregular expenditure, deteriorating sewage treatment plants and unhygienic container toilets in Cape Town’s informal settlements.
The report, released this week, showed the City’s financial statements reflected more than R760 million in irregular expenditure, and spent less on maintenance of its infrastructure, putting service delivery in jeopardy.
The report showed that the City also received material irregularity notifications from the AG’s office.
These are related to payments made to service providers for goods and services not received, and the other for payments to external contractors for excessive standby hours because a needs analysis was not performed.
The report also noted that over the term of the previous administration, the City regressed from a clean audit outcome to a financially unqualified opinion, with findings on compliance with legislation relating to supply chain management and the prevention of irregular expenditure.
Despite the non-compliance with the supply chain management process being flagged in previous AG audits, this year the reports noted that the “metro’s outcome remained unchanged from 2018/19 to 2020/21”.
The audit also found that the City spent R2.68 billion on repairing and maintaining its assets, valued at R53bn, 3% less than the norm of 8%.
“This resulted in the metro not meeting its spending performance target on repairing and maintaining 95%, which will affect the long-term service delivery potential of these assets”.
body.copy...: It further noted that the final effluent at wastewater treatment plants did not comply with licence requirements; and the minimum limits for chloride.
Suspended solids and E-coli were also found to be “significantly exceeded”.
The report also noted that while the City consistently received good audit opinions on performance reporting, these did not necessarily translate to decent service delivery to all residents in the metro.
It also said that some community concerns were not included in its Integrated Development Plan.
“The reports of civil society should be a key input to the planning processes of metros to ensure that the needs of communities are appropriately responded to”, said the report.
During its visit to infrastructure facilities, the AG team found that some container toilets were in an unhygienic condition and in need of maintenance because they were not being serviced at the required intervals.
The City, along with other metros of Tshwane, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Nelson Mandela Bay, were downgraded to below investment grade by June 30.
The AG warned that the downgrades put pressure on some of the metros to raise funding for capital expenditure, and had to use internal savings from operational budgets to fund shortfalls.
“Although some of these metros have cash reserves, its further use to make up revenue shortfalls will reduce the metros’ capacity to meet future debt obligations as they fall due,” cautioned the AG.
The South African Local Government Association (Salga) said a lack of consequence management and “tolerance of mediocrity” in municipalities fuelled a sense of impunity.
“There can never be improvement in accountability and good governance if the transgressors are allowed to go unpunished,” Salga said.
The ANC in the City council said it was vindicated by the finding on the regression of the municipality’s audit status to a financially unqualified one.
The party said no one was held accountable for delayed or uncompleted projects but instead, these were rolled over without impunity for those responsible.
“The DA propaganda of a well-run city is now exposed by the audit outcomes. It’s now time for the ANC to approach the public Protector as some of the findings violate the human rights of many poor people”, said the party’s chief whip, Charlotte Heyns.
GOOD said there was lack of political will or ability to implement services needed across the city.
“The residents of Cape Flats have been crying out for services for many years with little response from the City,” said councillor Suzette Little.
She said her party had consistently raised concerns over the large number of deviations and condonations.
“But because the DA has the majority, very little attention is paid to any other opinions in Council.
“The mayor and municipal manager need to understand that they are the custodians of public funds. They have a duty to be prudent and transparent and must recover funds that should have never been spent.”
Civil society group, STOP COCT slammed the City for its failure to spend its budget, roll-overs and project cancellations.
“It’s time that the City does a zero based budget and addresses its chronic underspending which leads to high tariffs. These high tariffs are based on a wish list that diminishes as the budget year draws to a close,” said STOP COCT spokesperson Sandra Dickson.
AG Tsakane Maluleke called on municipal leaders across the country to work towards better outcomes.
The City has not responded to queries.
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