The DA will write to The Greater Tzaneen Municipality Municipal Manager, Donald Mhangwana, to produce and enforce an Unauthorised, Irregular, Fruitless and Wasteful (UIFW) expenditure reduction strategy.
Greater Tzaneen Municipality adopted a budget of R1.6 billion in the 2022/23 financial year, and incurred R 13 329 202 in fruitless and wasteful expenditure. This was as a result of paying its Eskom bill late which resulted in the municipality incurring R 1 063 000.33 in interest for late payment. The municipality additionally paid its Telkom bill late and also incurred a large amount of about R 12 249 100.92 in fruitless and wasteful expenditure as a result of litigation costs.
The municipality further incurred R 114 605 225.00 in irregular expenditure, a large chunk of this was as a result of the municipality failing to adhere to the Supply Chain Management (SCM) policy. The municipality failed to hold officials accountable or take any meaningful disciplinary action for the large amount of UIFW, yet residents are not getting much needed services.
Currently residents in areas such as Politsi, Letsitele and Ga Wally do not get regular water supply nor sanitation due to dilapidated infrastructure and the municipality’s financial constraints, had the municipality enforced a UIFW reduction strategy it would have additional financial resources to provide the much-needed services.
The UIFW accounts for about 10% of the budget. This is highly concerning and the Municipal Manager must investigate this and ensure that those who are responsible are held accountable and ensure appropriate consequence management is taken. The municipality’s senior management must come up with a UIFW expenditure reduction strategy and ensure that it is enforced.
The DA cares about the wellbeing of the residents and wants to see the municipality reducing its UIFW and use that money to improve services to its residents.
We will closely monitor progress on this matter and ensure that proper measures are put in place to reduce UIFW and avoid it in the future. We will continue to put pressure to ensure consequence management is properly enforced by the municipality.