The Democratic Alliance in the Limpopo Legislature will, at the next sitting, table a motion with notice to debate the continued poor and stagnant performances of our 27 municipalities as per the Auditor-General’s (AG) consolidated report on local government for 2023/24.
According to the report outcomes remained largely unchanged and a tolerance for transgressions, excessive spending on consultants and poor performance persist.
Waterberg and Capricorn District municipalities received clean audits, 14 municipalities received unqualified audits, 10 municipalities received qualified audits and the embattled Thabazimbi municipality received a disclaimer.
93% of municipalities had material misstatements in the financial reports and due to a lack of skills or vacancies, Limpopo municipalities collectively spent R278.12 million on consultants.
Despite this expenditure , 20 municipalities still submitted financial statements with material misstatements that fell within the scope of the work performed by consultants.
Areas of concern raised by the AG include:
- Non-compliance with procurement and contract management legislation resulted in irregular expenditure of R2,03 billion, mainly because procurement processes were not followed.
- 10 municipalities, two more than last year, adopted unfunded budgets
- 16 municipalities incurred R2,19 billion in unauthorised expenditure.
- Bela-Bela, Modimolle-Mookgophong and Thabazimbi owe Eskom a combined R454 million and are at risk of being removed from the Eskom debt-relief programme due to non-compliance
- 4 municipalities disclosed going concern uncertainty and the R149.54 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure incurred added to the financial pressure
- The delay in water infrastructure projects deprive communities of an adequate water supply; in Sekhukhune District municipality, 3 reservoirs that were to have been completed in November 2021 remain incomplete, with very little progress having been made in 2023-24 despite utlilising 97% of the project’s total budget of R63,24 million
- Of the 40 material irregularity notifications issued in the province, 34 related to financial losses of an estimated at R1,43 billion
The DA is concerned about the MEC for COGHSTA’s lack of transparency in the gradual and systemic collapse of our municipalities; the AG specifically noted that MEC Makamu did not table the 2022-23 consolidated report on municipal performance in the provincial legislature as required. The report on those municipalities that had failed to adequately address our audit report findings was tabled, but the provincial legislature has yet to make any resolutions based on the observations in the report.
The people of Limpopo continue to receive poor or no services due to financial mismanagement, lack of accountability, poor governance and continued cadre deployment under the ANC; it is time to vote out indifferent politicians who are only in it for themselves.