Pretoria - The adoption of treasury circulars by Tshwane council this week has been hailed as a move to turn the corner with regard to the metro’s financial situation.
The City’s Section 79 committee on municipal public accounts committee (Mpac) expressed confidence that the adoption of circulars was a step in the right direction in the fight against unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The auditor-general (A-G) has constantly flagged the municipality for financial transgressions, especially regarding its irregular spending amounting to billions of rands at some stage.
In July, Tshwane was flagged for incurring the largest amount of irregular expenditure of R2.7 billion, followed by Joburg’s R1.1bn.
The irregularly spent R2.7bn, however, showed a decline from the R2.9bn it incurred in the 2018/2019 financial period.
The picture painted by the A-G was that Tshwane metro was the worst performer among Gauteng municipalities by dint of accounting for the highest irregular spending of R2.7bn for the financial year 2020/2021.
Despite its record-high irregular expenditure, the City received an unqualified report with findings.
According to committee chairperson Kholofelo Morodi, the council resolution would help the municipality to drive “an ethical and professional public service with zero-tolerance for corruption”.
Morodi, an ActionSA councillor, said some of these circulars adopted were eight years old.
“Circular 76 details the processes and time-frames for the different human resource, legal, civil, and criminal processes to be followed in cases of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” she said.
On the other hand, she said circular 92 supported the effective functioning and decision-making of councillors serving on committee.
Morodi said: “Circular 113, Web Enabled Audit Action Plan System, aids municipalities across the country, through the introduction of the web-enabled audit action plan system. The web-enabled audit action plan will serve to address the gaps identified through the audit process.”
She said Mpac was committed to continuing to work together to reduce cases of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure in Tshwane.
In response to the A-G findings this year, the multi-party coalition said: “Our multi-party coalition government respects the independence of the Office of the A-G and therefore we have taken note of the points of concern raised by the A-G during the audit process, which include material water and electricity losses.
“These are largely driven by ageing infrastructure, illegal connections and electricity theft.”
Pretoria News