According to DA Clr Khetha Shandu, following the tabling of the EMM internal audit report at its ordinary council meeting in February, the report was referred to oversight committees for scrutiny.
At its oversight meeting in March, the Corporate and Shared Services members were able to examine the report thoroughly and DA members were dismayed at what they saw.
Shandu says that many of the metro’s departments hadn’t achieved targets in the second quarter of the 2013/14 financial year, and none of the departments’ managers offered any explanation in the column set aside for this purpose.
The meeting became heated at the revelation that the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Department only achieved two of their 13 targets.
“It was further damned by the findings that most of their evidence did not support the key performance indicators (KPI) and which prompted Shandu to call for a revised audit report,” says Shandu.
“This report serves as an early indicator on whether the municipality is on course or not.
“This lacklustre performance is a clear indication that the municipality will not receive a clean audit again this financial year,” says Shandu.
“The DA demands that each department submits the correct evidence as a matter of urgency for the external audit.
“The current report states that in the call centre the percentage of retrieved dropped calls is two per cent of a target of 30 per cent, meaning only two calls are retrieved for every 100 calls dropped.
“That is disgraceful in light of the mayor waxing lyrical about all the money and staff being poured into the call centre and can only mean the state of customer service is almost beyond repair,” says Shandu.
“It is high time that the ANC-led executive be the leaders they are meant to be and ensure that every department is staffed with competent officials who account properly to the metro and by extension, its residents.”
“Equally worrying is the fact that the report also has had many of the same gaps for years which the Auditor General has criticised Ekurhuleni for before, like millions of rands worth of unaccounted for water, but neither the department nor the report seem to be picking these problems up early enough.”
