Government must do more

GOVERNMENT has an earnest and urgent responsibility to ensure its municipalities are spending their ratepayers’ hard-earned taxes prudently and without fear of millions going wayward into a deep, dark hole.
Deputy auditor general Kimi Makwetu has belaboured the fact that there has been slow progress by municipalities and public entities towards ensuring they achieve clean audits.
Of all the municipalities in the country, only five percent had achieved clean, unqualified audits in the past three years, which was cause for concern.
Perhaps in response, but certainly an uncanny coincidence, is KZN Premier Dr Zweli Mkhize’s description of the signing of a protocol agreement between the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela and his provincial executive council as a ‘significant development in the fight against fraud, corruption and maladministration’ in the province. The contract was signed during the sitting of Cabinet in Pietermaritzburg this week.
Citizens have a right to expect – nay, demand – that public funds received by the state from its citizens are put to the best possible use in ensuring service delivery for all. Ensuring this is done, and if not, taking the strictest measures to recoup the losses and ensure it does not recur, is encumbent upon government.
Mkhize remarked that the democratically elected government comprises of public representatives who are elected and who as such, serve at the will of the people.
It can only be hoped that KZN as one province in the country will at least see some improvement with immediate effect, in relation to the maladministration, fraud and corruption that is a cancer that afflicts most municipalities across the political spectrum in all of South Africa.