By The Free State Province has shown some improvement in accountability as most of the municipalities submitted their financial statements on time to the Auditor General (AG) for auditing.
The province has been notorious for non-compliance and non-accountability for many years, however, in the previous administration the province showed a change of attitude towards accountability and compliance.
Though there is much improvement, according to the Auditor General’s report, the Free State still has some work to do. The AG Ms Tsakani Maluleke says since 2022, her office issued 25 Material Irregularities (MI) notification to accounting officers of municipalities for delaying the accountability process by submitting their financial statements late or not at all, 16 of the municipalities were in the Free State and one municipal entity.
According to the report, the improved performance was due to the provincial government led by the Premier Mr Mxolisi Dukwana and the Provincial Legislature ensuring that Mayors acted in accordance to their commitments for municipalities to submit their financial statements on time.
The province, using tools from the AG was able to turnaround the culture of non-accountability to transparency by submitting financial statements on time. The Free State has made serious gains compared to the past administrations.
In 2020/21 financial year, the submission rate was at 48%, in 2021/22 it improved to 61% and 2022/23 it reached 83%.
“Moqhaka and Mafube local municipalities responded to the material irregularity notifications issued to their municipal managers by submitting their outstanding financial statements in February and March 2024, respectively. Although we received the separate financial statements for both Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality and its municipal entity (Maluti-a-Phofung Water) on time in 2022-23, their consolidated financial statements were not submitted on time,” said the AG Tsakani Maluleke in her report.
Though there is much improvement, the report shows that the sole metro of the Free State is still not yet functioning optimally, there is some lack of accountability as some projects, including road construction and unfinished housing projects could not be accounted for, targets are not met as well.
The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) has since welcomed the report by the AG and said the Association has observed that the MFMA 2022/2023 audit outcomes indicate a notable 45% reduction in the number of municipalities with disclaimed audit opinions, which is commendable and needs to be replicated to improve financial governance in all the municipalities still in the red zone.
SALGA further urged municipalities who are still underperforming to learn from those who received clean audit outcomes.
“SALGA calls for municipalities to adopt best practices from best performers with clean audit outcomes, institutionalizing controls through digital innovations, and stringent performance management and also cascading it to all officials lower than Senior Management. Councils and the Department of Cooperative Governance (COGTA) to ensure the functionality of oversight structures and continuous capacity building of Councillors throughout their term of office,” said Sivuyile Mbambato the National Spokesperson for SALGA.
