State's paralysis on delinquent municipal officials eroding public trust

ON JUNE 24, South Africa’s Auditor-General, Tsakani Maluleke, tabled her consolidated report presenting the 2024-2025 audit outcomes as part of her constitutional obligation.

- PROF BHEKI MNGOMEZULU

One of the main observations made by the AG was that the sixth administration, whose term of office ended in May 2024, did not achieve the desired turnaround in local government. This was a serious indictment of government's failure to act on delinquent officials.

What was glaring in the audit report was that only 39 municipalities obtained a clean audit opinion. This translated to 15% of all the 257 municipalities nationally. The figure was less than the 41 municipalities that obtained a clean audit in the previous annual report.

The AG was particularly concerned that the 2024-25 audit outcomes reveal serious regressions at metropolitan municipalities across the country. The unqualified audits for Cape Town, eThekwini and Johannesburg were not enough to bring hope that the situation will improve. Issues such as lack of ethical behaviour and conflict of interest influenced the audit outcome.

In the past, Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality has been touted as a good example of how to run a municipality. Addressing over 4 000 ANC councillors, President Cyril Ramaphosa sparked an intense debate when he conceded that the country’s best-performing and best-run municipalities are led by the DA. He went on to cite Cape Town and Stellenbosch as some of those municipalities.

But according to this year's audit report, regression was reported even in Cape Town. This opinion was attributed to the findings on procurement and contract management that were not handled properly.

Even in areas where positive results were recorded in this year’s report, some concerns were still raised by the AG. For example, the number of disclaimed municipalities went down from 29 to 8. This looks good and progressive.