According to a statement on August 13, released by auditor-general, Terrence Nobemebe, Ekurhuleni and the other metros faltered in their crucial role of providing exemplary leadership to smaller municipalities, as none them were able to obtained a clean audit opinion.
The Democratic Alliance in Ekurhuleni is concerned that although Ekurhuleni managed an unqualified audit, AG Terence Nombembe made findings of non-compliance with laws and regulations in the metro’s annual financial statements.
Commenting on the report released by the AG on the state of Gauteng municipalities, DA spokesperson of Finance, Eddie Taylor, says the Ekurhuleni metro had some way to go in order to reach the target it had set itself of achieving a clean audit by 2014.
According to Taylor, the AG had made adverse comments on various aspects of the metro’s finances.
“The metro was taken to task for its inadequate management of purchasing and tender contracting functions.
“The DA has repeatedly called for transparency in the awarding of tenders to be improved by simply opening the committee meetings where bids are awarded to scrutiny by the public and the media as is done in the Cape Town metro,” said Taylor.
“The governing party has flatly refused to do so in Ekurhuleni, despite the high levels of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.”
One of the reasons why the eight metro municipalities, including Ekurhuleni,, are in trouble is because they leave the key positions of municipal manager, chief financial officer and supply chain manager vacant for too long.
According to Taylor, Ekurhuleni has been without a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the best part of a year after the current CFO was suspended pending an enquiry into misconduct.
He adds that the poor state of affairs has since deteriorated further with the recent departure of Annette van Schalkwyk, the acting CFO because her contract had not been renewed.
The auditor-general blamed the slow progress towards improvement in financial management in the province on three main root causes, among others:
* Key positions being vacant or key officials lacking appropriate competences;
* Lack of consequences for poor performance and transgressions; and
* Slow response by political leadership in addressing the root causes of poor audit outcomes.
“Ekurhuleni is guilty of all three root causes so the political leadership needs to take heed of the auditor-general’s analysis of the reasons for lack of progress and take bold corrective steps to fix the situation,” says Taylor.
