While the Auditor General Tsakane Maluleke said Chris Hani District Municipality had done
very little to show what it had done with R1 billion of its budget, the
municipality rubbished claims that it could not account for the money.
Speaking
during a post council meeting media briefing yesterday, 5 July, integrated planning and economic
development political head Sibongile Mbotshane said the R1 billion was written
off due to the nature in which contracts were entered into. He said a billion Rand irregular expenditure was cumulative since 2010 and not from one financial
year.
“We continued to pay the service providers despite their contracts having
expired. So every time we paid them it went into irregular expenditure. We
could not just abandon projects. But those services have now been terminated,”
he said.
Maluleke
also said the district authority had paid R66 million and R24 million
respectively to consultants. The municipality, however, received a disclaimer
audit opinion, the second worst opinion.
But municipal manager Gcobani
Mashiyi said the municipality – during the 2019/20 financial year – paid two
consultant amounts of R1.2 million each to review financial statements and
another to compile a fixed asset register.
“We are currently in the process of
closing the financial year and compile financial statements for the September
audits. The disclaimer we received had no basis of R1 billion but the
disclaimer relates to other things,” he said.
Mashiyi
said the basis of the disclaimer were:
- Property
plant and equipment; - Lack
of credibility in the billing information due to bad metre readers; - Technical
methodology used to calculate money owed to the district; - Unspent
conditional grant funding amounting to R35 million; and - Distribution losses caused by illegal water
connections
Executive mayor Wongama Gela said there was no R1 billion that could not be accounted
for.
“When we develop the audit action plan we send the draft to the department
of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta), treasury and office
of the auditor general. We have also established an audit working group which
is chaired by the deputy executive mayor Noncedo September. The group ensures
implementation of findings and recommendations from our internal audit unit,”
he said.
Gela said Cogta and treasury formed part of the group.
