Auditor general reveals shocking state of KDM
As senior auditor Amanda Zuma presented the report to council which highlighted the municipality's continued flouting of laws and regulations, many councillors seemed more distracted by their phones, openly scrolling through Facebook and other social media platforms.
The auditor-general delivered a damning report of KwaDukuza municipality’s irregular expenditure last week – but was met with apparent indifference by the majority of councillors.
As senior auditor Amanda Zuma presented the report to council which highlighted the municipality’s continued flouting of laws and regulations, many councillors seemed more distracted by their phones, openly scrolling through Facebook and other social media platforms.
The latest audit results presented to council last Thursday, January 30 shows a 20 percent increase in irregular expenditure, from R141 million to R169 million for the 2018/19 financial year.
Irregular expenditure refers to money spent in contravention of supply chain management procedures.
While it does not necessarily mean corruption, it does mean legislation, prescripts and regulations have been broken.
Although the municipality maintained its unqualified audit opinion, there were material adverse findings.
Auditor Zuma said the municipality had been slow in implementing, and in many instances even disregarded, the audit office recommendations.
The municipality’s inability to plan and spend revenue is also having negative consequences. In the past KDM has continued to experience difficulties with the planning and execution of capital spending.
Of the R236 million capital expenditure allocated only R86 million, or 37 percent was spent during the period under review.
What these accounting failures mean for the lives of citizens is poor service delivery.
The consequences of underspending on repairs and maintenance over the medium to long term include the deteriorating reliability and quality on the rollout of services and the ever-increasing cost of maintenance and refurbishment.
Failures in the development and maintenance of infrastructure is another consequence of underspending.
A staggering R115 million was recorded for energy losses, an increase of R22 million from the previous year for the 12 month period.
While electricity theft has been attributed to illegal connections, vandalism and cable theft have also contributed to the loss.
High costs of electricity has been identified as one of the factors driving illegal connections to the grid and bypassing electric meters.
Acting mayor Dolly Govender read the riot act to council employees and department heads, saying it was time to put an end to mediocrity and work towards a council that was committed to service delivery in order to support the country’s and region’s transformation agenda.
Govender said shift systems needed to be implemented to reduce overtime which was recorded at R20 million at the end of December.
“We must deliver a better, habitable city to which all are happy to live in and attract investors. We are in offices to work and nothing more,” she said.
The amended Public Audit Act which came into effect in April last year allows the auditor-general to refer material irregularities to relevant public bodies for further investigations.
DA caucus leader Madhun Sing highlighted non-compliance with legislation especially with extension of contracts and the absence of competitive bidding on contracts.
Other common areas for non-compliance were management and procurement of contracts.
“The root cause of this is a lack of will from the municipality in implementing corrective action against officials flouting processes,” he said.
The municipality was accused of not making ‘adequate attempts’ to follow up on allegations of supply chain management misconduct.
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