The local government audit outcomes for the 2021-’22 financial year have been released and, according to Anton Bredell, Western Cape Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, 21 out of the 30 Western Cape local municipalities received clean audits with no findings and six received clean audits with findings.
One of these municipalities is the Breede Valley Municipality (BVM), which can confirm where every rand and cent of tax money has been spent.
This audit makes the BVM one of only 38 municipalities out of the 257 in the country to receive a clean audit.
According to Chad Malgas, spokesperson for the BVM, a clean audit simply means that the Auditor-General did not find any irregularities in BVM’s financial statements and annual performance report, such as certain income and expenses that do not add up or incorrect tender processes that were followed through.
For the municipality to achieve this outcome various processes had to be adhered to:
- The financial statements were free of any material misstatements or irregularities.
- The reported performance information contained in the 2021-’22 annual performance report passed the usefulness and reliability criteria determined by the auditor general.
- Compliance with specific legislative prescripts was found and contained in key legislation; that is, no material findings or non-compliance with legislation were identified by the Auditor-General.
Malgas said the BVM is proud of this achievement and regards it is a “great accolade”.
“The clean audit accentuates that good governance principles have been consistently applied throughout the organisation, coupled with sound monitoring and oversight mechanisms,” he explained.
