Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) MEC Fikile Xasa has issued a blunt warning to municipalities that the 30 day payment period for service providers “is non-negotiable,” and that failure to meet this standard “must be matched with consequence management against the guilty parties”.
Xasa said the same applied with regard to fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The MEC was speaking after his first quarterly meeting with mayors, municipal managers and other representatives from municipalities that were required to present progress reports on their audit turnaround plans.
A report to the Budget and Treasury Committee at the end of last month showed that the overwhelming majority of directorates in Nelson Mandela Bay had failed to meet the prescribed turn around time for the processing of documentation.
Budget and Treasury commented that the number of days taken by directorates to process documentation for payment “remains unacceptable and impacts significantly…on compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA)”.
Xasa said after the meeting that it was time “to restore public confidence in municipalities,” adding that this would be achieved through collaboration, hard work and “intolerance of non-performance”.
The MEC said that the quarterly meetings were aimed at arresting the “decline in the oversight role of leadership in the daily operations of municipalities,” which had resulted in negative audit outcomes.
Article published from Metro Minutes by Patrick Cull”.
