uMkhanyakude District Municipality is pleased with its qualified audit opinion for the 2012/13 financial year after receiving an adverse audit opinion in 2010/11 and a disclaimer audit opinion in the 2011/12 financial year.
Numerous issues led to the district’s dismal audits in previous years, including immense and unresolved water shortages, the incorrect spending of public funds and the loss of all financial documents in the fire of February 2012, which razed the Finance Department to the ground.
These documents were crucial evidence in forensic investigations and led to the adverse audit opinion of 2011/12.
The investigation surrounding grants and funds allocated to the municipality is still ongoing.
After raising concerns about the municipality’s history of poor audit performances, the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government requested that the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) MEC intervene.
In June 2013, the CoGTA Portfolio Committee visited uMkhanyakude Council to rectify issues uncovered by the Auditor General during its 2011/12 audit.
The new council, led by Honorary Speaker Councillor Hlengiwe Mavimbela and Mayor Jeff Vilane, applied numerous corrective measures to obtain clean audits. These measures included the development of a register of unauthorised, irregular and wasteful expenditure.
Mduduzi Dlamini, uMkhanyakude District Municipality Spokesperson, said, ‘Government grants will be spent correctly to uplift the standard of the impoverished people in the district. The district municipality’s vision is that all its citizens will have access to water and electricity by 2030.’
