HIGHVELD – The Govan Mbeki Municipality prides itself for obtaining a qualified audit opinion.
The municipality said this announcement is a breeze of fresh air considering the dark cloud that has engulfed the municipality following its late submission of the Annual Financial Statements for the previous financial year.
Mr Benzi Soko, acting head of communication, said this audit outcome is a positive development against “the negative forces which are always praying for negativity in the municipality”.
“The doomsayers will always want the municipality to labour on its failures and by so doing they forget about the positive results that have been achieved despite the horrible challenges faced by GMM.”
He said the municipality is working around the clock to ensure that it performs to its utmost best, regardless of the stubborn persisting challenges.
“We still remain resolute and committed to the vision of making GMM a model city and centre of excellence.
“It is our considered view that if we can all pull our resources together and work in unison as a team, we can achieve most of the objectives that we have set ourselves as an institution.
“We are calling to all our people that they should continue to pay their services in order for this municipality to reach the state of self-reliance financially speaking.”
“Despite all these daunting challenges and headaches, we should also indicate that we have made serious strides in our quest to turn the situation around.
Mr Soko said it is exciting that they managed to get the municipality out of disclaimer by achieving a Qualified Audit Outcome. He claimed that not everything is bad in the municipality.
“We are the only municipality in the province which is supplying clean drinkable water above the 90 per cent mark, meeting the standards set out by Rand Water.
“The municipality is still experiencing difficulties, especially in its revenue collection segment.
“This is the elephant in the room and we must tackle it with vigour, determination and fearlessness in the same way we are tackling other daunting challenges.
“It cannot be correct that there are people who are not paying for the municipal services whereas there are people who are paying for these services.”
According to Mr Soko the Eskom account is still a problem because of electricity theft that is causing distribution losses. He said GMM experiences electricity loses of about 75 per cent monthly.
Mr Soko said the municipality continues to pay its Eskom and Rand Water accounts on a weekly basis for the current account and the old debt respectively.
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