Westonaria Local Municipality under fire again

The Westonaria Local Municipality has come under fire again by the Westonaria South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu).

Samwu representative Dumisani Chiya points the finger at those in management positions to be at fault for the opinion received from the Auditor General which states that there has been no improvement within the municipality.

He said that this emanates from the fact that accountability of mismanagement of funds has gone to “the dogs within council” and says that “the mayor is making friends with colleagues”.

This comes after the release of the 2012/2013 audit report which has revealed that the the audit opinion of the already struggling municipality remains unchanged.

In line with this, the Auditor General has made findings that “The audit opinion remained unchanged with a qualification on assets and cash equivalents as well as finding on compliance with legislation and predetermined objectives.

“The reason for the stagnation is inadequate monitoring of the action plan to address the previous years audit findings, instability in key positions such as Chief Financial Officer within the municipality and a lack of daily financial disciplines being implemented.”

Meanwhile, Chiya has said that the reason for the lack of improvement within the municipality is allegedly because of the Westonaria’s executive mayor Nonkoliso Tundzi “friendly” involvement with staff members who hold senior positions particularly the Chief Financial Officer and has accused her of appointing relatives in senior positions as well as issuing them with tenders. As a result, she apparently cannot put her foot down when the need arises.

“It has come to our attention that the Auditor General’s report states that there has been no improvement on the municipality’s finances and that does not come as a surprise to us. In actual fact, it just confirms our suspicions on how ill-managed this municipality has been since the inception of the current municipal manager Thabo Ndlovu,” says Chiya.

According to him, the council is also responsible for the poor results of the supply chain management which has indicated that there has been irregular expenditure within the municipality which amounts to R17.2 million.

“There were audit issues that could have been avoided had simple checks been done. However due to capacity constraints we are now sitting with this problem. In addition to this, the municipality had issues with the archiving of documents as well as storage space which then poses a challenge of keeping record in the supply chain management unit” says Chiya who insinuated that the specific department is in poor shape.

Owing to this, he and the union have since called for action to be taken against those responsible for the continued mismanagement of the municipality to be held accountable for this and face consequences for their actions.

The herald has spoken to Westonaria Local Municipality mayoral spokesperson Kgabane Madiehe who has promised to revert back on the allegations levelled against the mayor and other pertinent issue.

Watch this space as the story develops.