Despite appealing to National Treasury after disagreements with the office of Auditor General (AG) on findings that led to its disclaimer audit opinion, Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) has failed to have the opinion changed.
Presenting during a virtual council meeting on Friday, February 25 CHDM executive mayor, Wongama Gela, said there were a number of findings that disqualified the municipality. The bases of the opinion included irregular expenditure, unspent conditional grants and receipts and water distribution losses.
He said there were matters in the report in which the municipality found inconsistency of interpretation.
“Correspondence was forwarded to both provincial and national treasuries to request intervention and appropriate interpretation of the statutes of national Treasury. Provincial treasury, as an appointed adjudicator, agreed with the AG’s office,” Gela said.
A special council meeting will, however, be called to present the audit report as per the norm. An audit action plan will be developed while the district authority had started with the development of the plan on matters previously agreed upon.
The municipality is embarking on cleaning water metres and use actual readings.
“(We will) only perform estimations on metres that are not accessible due to factors beyond the municipality’s control. Those will be resolved through the SMART metres process,” he said.
Council noted and accepted, without discussion, the report.
