KwaDukuza mayor Dolly Govender blames the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown for the municipality’s dismal performance in 2019/20.
The financial report tabled at a virtual council meeting last Tuesday showed an 11% increase in service delivery but the overall municipal performance dropped to 47% – a 17% drop from the previous year.
Performance dropped in all other significant areas, including institutional transformation and municipal development (25% decrease to 50%), financial management (6% decrease to 65%), spatial planning and environmental management (21% decrease to 58%), local economic development (23% decrease to 39%), good governance and public participation (33% decrease to 30%).
Govender said the municipality had no control over its performance as a large portion of the budget had been transferred to Covid-19 disaster projects.
“If it was not for the national pandemic, it is evident there would have been a much higher increase in basic service delivery. This annual report shows that the municipality has performed admirably despite the continued difficult economic climate as well as the complex social environment in which local government has to operate in, at present.”
The municipality underspent on its capital budget by R82.05 million which represents 32% of the total capital budget.
The main reasons given for the underspend was lockdown-induced delays in construction.
But according to the annual report, reasonable steps were not taken to prevent irregular spending which amounted to R155.5 million for the year under review – a decrease of R13.57 million from the R169.06 million in the 2018/19 financial year.
Some goods and services worth more than R200 000 were bought without inviting competitive bids and reasons for some irregular expenditure were not investigated, as required by law.
DA caucus leader Madhun Sing said systems were not in place to mitigate irregular and wasteful spending.
It was clear that Section 36 of the supply chain management (SCM) regulations was being abused by officials to award contracts.
“Disciplinary action and consequence management must apply to officials found wanting. We must weed out corrupt elements within the system before the rot gets bigger,” Sing said.
About 21% of electricity costs were not collected, totalling R152.6 million (2018/19 R115.1 million), much of that caused by illegal connections.
Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers Association (Docrra) chairman, Deon Viljoen said there were a number of issues to be concerned about.
“If we have to identify a specific theme, it is the lack of or poor performance management and the consequential lack of accountability and consequence management at KDM.
“This view is shared with many other oversight organisations. I believe municipalities have come to rely on community apathy and are caught off guard with engagement, protests, petition and legal action which is becoming more evident countrywide. Active citizenship is desperately needed.”
In a statement released last Wednesday the SA Local Government Association (Salga) called for an overhaul of the local government model.
“A new and different way to incentivise municipal employees and councillors could be to link the performance of municipality and audit outcomes. This should be designed in such a way that the performance and audit results of the previous year determines the remuneration level of the following year.”
“Not only would this offer an incentive for good governance, but it will also ensure that councillors and employees take collective responsibility for the performance and standing of their municipality,” Salga said.
