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.
