Mbashe Local Municipality has maintained its unqualified audit opinion with emphasis on matters for the 2024/25 financial year from the office of the Auditor General South Africa (AGSA) as revealed during an ordinary council meeting on Wednesday, 3 November.
In a briefing by the executive mayor, Dr Samkelo Janda, he said the council meeting dealt with reports that needed council approval. The reports included the municipality’s intent to apply for a vehicle testing station and the performance evaluation report, which focuses on the municipal manager (MM) and the senior managers reporting to the MM. However, Janda – who recently obtained his PhD in Public Administration from Nelson Mandela University – focused on two of the reports.
“One of those reports was talking to an application we intend to make about a vehicle testing station. We are in the programme of ensuring we increase our revenue base, so this vehicle testing station is going to help so that our motorists don’t go into far areas for this service. They are able to find it within the Mbhashe Local Municipality. So, we are building one in Dutywa and another one in Xhora,” he said.
Janda said the municipality had been given an indication by the office of the AGSA that auditing had been completed on November 30. “They have given us a report to indicate that the municipality will still maintain the unqualified audit opinion with emphasis on matters. Those matters of emphasis are debt impairment, financial misstatement and the third aspect is around irregular expenditure,” he said.
He said the performance evaluation on the audit report was encouraging in that there was improvement. “For instance, the targets which were set to be about 81 when compared with the budget and the expenditure, there was a correlation, and they were balancing; it was 80-81, which we were very happy to see. We were also pleased to see that there were no material findings in our performance information.”
Janda said, however, that the local authority had hoped to be at the clean audit stage by now but cited the matters of emphasis that had been raised. He commended the municipal administration for the improved performance. “We also want to extend our gratitude to the office of the AGSA and our audit committee for the work that they have done. This year’s audit was not an easy one but at least we were able to maintain the status of unqualified even though we are not happy,” Janda said.
