DA: ANC politics actual reason for the poor AG report

LIMPOPO – “Limpopo municipalities remain subject to high levels of irregular, unauthorised and fruitless and wasteful expenditure, which the ANC leadership is dismally failing to prevent”

This according to a letter written by Jacques Smalle, DA Limpopo.

In the letter Smalle says that the 2013/14 Auditor General report on Limpopo municipalities came with more bad news than good;

– On all our municipalities and their entities, the AG could only serve a qualified audit opinion.

– Four municipalities contributed 75% of the unauthorised expenditure in the province. Of the R882 million in unauthorised expenditure incurred in the past year, 98% was a result of overspending the approved budget. Moreover, poor project planning and implementation of strategies led to our municipalities failing to spend R827million of the Municipal Infrastructure Grants allocated. As a result, 45% of the MIG was not spent and subsequently service delivery suffered.

– 22% of Chief Financial Officers did not have required competencies, hence 73% of goods and services received were procured without following the necessary Supply Chain Management procedures. The report continues to reveal that Limpopo municipalities have spent about R92.8million on financial management consultants, yet 19% of them could not deliver on their contracts. Across all indicators service delivery in the province continue to deteriorate.

“Political interference and lack of political decisiveness in certain municipalities are actual reasons for the poor audit outcome for the 2013/14 financial year” says Smalle.

The Auditor General identified the following as critical areas affected by the ongoing political infighting in public institutions:

– Ownership by both political and administrative leadership,

– investment in appointing skilled staff, disciplines and service delivery execution and

– compliance with legislation, credibility, performance management systems and governance.

“These identified problems have always been ignored by government leadership in Limpopo for as long as they were raised by the DA.

“Government needs to address the high vacancy rates and instability in key positions, as well as lack of appropriate competencies, among others. The department of Treasury, Coghsta and their portfolio committees must investigate officials’ skills capacity at all municipalities and do away with a lack of appropriate competencies that is possibly a result of ANC’s nepotism and political deployment. This will assist municipalities in producing proper financial statements and annual performance reports without any material misstatements.

“This is a constitutional obligation of these departments and committees,” says Smalle.

Smalle says the premier, Stanley Mathabatha, must start acting realistically and open criminal cases where needed.

According to Smalle,  as long as offenders of the Limpopo people are not facing justice or arrested for their crimes ,the claims that Mathabatha has taken action against non-performing municipal officials remain lame to the DA.