The office of the Auditor General of South Africa could not find records of unspent conditional grants and receipts at Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM).
This was revealed by Deputy Business Leader Sabelo Mavundla during a virtual ordinary council meeting on Wednesday, March 30.
He said while the disclaimer of opinion received by CHDM shows stagnation, they can’t say there aren’t improvements.
Mavundla said the district authority could not account for its property, plant, and equipment.
“Damaged and vandalised assets were included in the asset register. We could not identify what the misstatement was and as a result, couldn’t form an opinion,” said Mavundla.
He said the municipality did not have adequate systems to identify irregular expenditure leading to an understatement of R7 million.
Executive Mayor Wongama Gela said the municipality had established an audit working group to monitor the implementation of the audit action plan.
Gela said the group, which will include Provincial Treasury and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Department, will meet weekly.
“Council should note and accept the audit report. We can’t dispute it, but workout how to respond to the issues raised by the AG. Our audit action plan is fully aligned to the findings of the AG,” Gela said.
He said if all hands are on deck, the audit action plan should be fully implemented by the end of the financial year.
