Meet Kagiso Lerutla, Ekurhuleni’s new CFO

The Addie recently sat down with the new chief financial officer (CFO) of the metro, Kagiso Lerutla.

The 33-year-old Benoni resident describes himself as performance-driven and a team player, and he is confident he has the skills, knowledge and integrity required for this position.

In a wide-ranging interview, we asked him how he plans to restore confidence in the metro’s finance department, set a budget that responds to residents’ needs, recover money from contractors who do shoddy work, settle disagreements between the metro and employees in the matter of overtime, and curb irregular expenditure.

Why do you think you are equipped to handle this position and the responsibilities that come with it?

It’s tough working in local government, but I’m adjusting. I’ve been in the position for seven months now and I’m familiar with the responsibilities.

I have been part of local government for five years, and in that time I’ve taken on different responsibilities at senior level. Therefore, I’m better equipped in terms of the knowledge needed to perform my job.

Working in local government is highly regulated, but I understand the institution and the challenges we’re facing.

As a resident of Ekurhuleni, I also understand the struggles people are facing. When we have no water or electricity, I can relate.

What are you hoping to achieve as CFO?

We want to affirm ourselves in terms of the clean audit.

We want to improve the level of confidence that the community has in us by using our budget in the right manner.

We promise the citizens that we are doing our level best to adhere to the legislation, give them the best service and create an environment where the metro is financially sustainable.

How important is it that the community participate in the financial policies you are either drafting or wish to implement?

The influence of the community is vital in any process in government. That’s why a budget cannot be passed without input from the community. It’s their budget and it must respond to their needs.

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What are the challenges facing the metro right now?

One of the fundamental challenges we are facing is when national treasury passes policies that have a direct impact on the residents without adequately consulting them.

For example, the national treasury believes the money should be spent on a project such as new clinics across the country, but the community doesn’t agree that they need this clinic and subsequently shut down the project.

We need to balance what we need with what national treasury is proposing.

You speak about responding to the needs of the residents. There are instances where the metro has responded to a particular need and a contractor has been appointed, but the work done was not up to the agreed standard. However, nothing happens to those contractors and the metro has to come back and fix the problem again. How are you going to stop that wasteful expenditure?

In terms of the bid adjudication committee, we are one of the few municipalities that comply with the Constitution in terms of section 207, which requires transparency.

Our committee meetings are open to the public, so any member of the public can come and scrutinise the process.

We’re not hiding anything. They can come see how robustly we engage on an issue.

We try our best to evaluate and adjudicate the matter and make sure that the best person gets the job.

In the instance where contractors fail to meet their contractual obligations, we take the legal route. We look at blacklisting them and recovering the funds.

Springs has been without a library since January. Schoolchildren need a library in order to do their projects, adults want to take out books and parents would like to register their children for school using the public services they have been promised. Given this situation, will funds be allocated to the library?

We personally apologise for any inconvenience that has arise from the entire situation. We will try to do everything possible to make sure that the best possible contractor is appointed. In terms of the current approved budget, those challenges will be resolved.

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Disagreements between the metro and it employees have affected residents. For example, rubbish was not collected in Springs for over three weeks because the metro refused to pay the workers overtime, so the workers downed tools. Has the metro resolved the issue of overtime with all of its employees?

Metro is highly regulated and is guided by treasury and council, so we have policies to deal with the issue of overtime. Overtime should only be worked when there’s a need or an emergency. There must be a motivation for why it’s necessary because ordinarily, people should work during their regular working hours.

How much irregular expenditure have you noticed in the metro and was there a register taken and action taken against officials?

In terms of the latest financial statement as audited by the Auditor-General (AG), we had irregular spending of around R200-million. This represented a decrease of about 40 per cent compared with the previous financial year when it was around R500-million. One thing that you should continuously remind people is that illegal expenditure is not necessarily unlawful. Sometimes irregular expenditure is created because of interpretation. For example, a big chunk of that R200-m was spent because we appointed Telkom as a service provider according to section 110 and the AG said Telkom was not a state-owned entity, but in other documents, Telkom is still listed as a state-owned entity.

You speak about transparency. Is the metro solvent? Do we have enough money to pay our debts for the next three months?

We are financially sustainable, and we have received the best credit rating in the country for two consecutive years by an independent entity. This demonstrates our cash management. So we are solvent. We are comfortable and we don’t have a cash flow problem.

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How do you plan to restore public trust in the finance department and the CFO, given the alleged misconduct of your predecessor?

I don’t want to comment on my predecessor. The first objective is to get a clean audit so that people can see we’re doing the right thing. Our second objective is to spend the money as we indicated to the community. If we said we are going to build a road, then we will do so. Those are the things that will restore confidence.

Although the metro has been given a clean audit over the past years, people are saying service delivery is not good. Shouldn’t you also be using public satisfaction as a benchmark of how well the metro’s using its budget in terms of service delivery?

If you look at the latest Customer Satisfaction Survey done last year, it shows that Ekurhuleni has been rated number one by residents in Gauteng. We will have to build on that.

To watch the full interview, head over to the Springs Advertiser Facebook page.