The ANC in the province welcomes the audit results of the Eastern Cape municipalities as a reflection of performance, reporting, budget expenditure and accountability by the municipalities of our province.
In some municipalities there is welcome progress in the results that shows how some municipalities are progressing from bad audit outcomes to better results through ensuring reliability andcredibility of information submitted to the auditors for auditing.
The ANC wants this not just to be a practice for auditing but it must be a culture in every municipality, provincial, national department, legislature and parliament.
At the heart of these audit outcomes is the welcome indication by the Auditor General that in the number of projects selected for audit, reporting showed improvements with reporting on actual performance in line with planned performance standing at 64%, reported performance that was found to be reliable by the AG was at 64%, actual performance reported in the annual performance reports stood at 93%, costs incurred reflected in the financial statements were at 75%.
This improvement is testament to the hard and smart work of some of our Councillor’s and officials in some of the municipalities of the province. And we encourage this because if and when it percolates to all municipalities, it will help to create a culture of accountability for the benefit of communities served by these institutions of government.
Various service delivery projects underway in our municipalities such as human settlements, roads, streets, bridges, electrification, agriculture, and many others show local government at work implementing the ANC elections manifesto to give our people a better life.
With regards to clean audits, we welcome the progress made by municipalities and their entities in this regard. Over the years, the AG has noted with appreciation, the 76% decrease of disclaimer audit outcomes, attributing this to enhanced record keeping by audited provincial municipalities.
In welcoming the audit reports, the ANC in the province wishes to appreciate the Councillor’s, Mayors and municipal staff that ensured improvement in the audit outcomes.
The changes and improvements in keeping records, provision of reliable information, both of which show signs of stable municipal administrations, are taking municipalities towards clean audit and governance.
The ANC is of the view that with proper records in place, municipalities can account to communities and structures of accountability in government, legislature and parliament about the use of public funds for development and be able to show evidence of the work done for communities.
As we now have 7 municipalities who got clean audit, we call on the rest of the municipalities, including the 17 that got unqualified outcome with findings, the 13 that got qualified audit outcomes with findings, the 2 municipalities that got adverse findings and the 3 that got disclaimer with findings, to learn from the municipalities that got clean audit outcomes by improving keeping of their own records, ensuring prudent management of procurement, recruitment, revenue collection and other matters of municipalities in a way that shows respect to the tax payers and the people served by municipalities.
The ANC appeals to the Mayors and collective leadership of Tsolwana, Ngqushwa and Mhlontlo municipalities to submit all outstanding relevant information to the Auditor General to complete their outstanding audits.
The ANC condemns lack of compliance with the auditing processes because all municipalities are aware that auditing of their books is done all the time for them to account for the use of the public purse.
The ANC accepts the AG’s finding that there is a correlation between poor project management planning, poor project management implementation and delays in the commissioning and use of projects and we commit to address these challenges. All of us in the ANC and those we have deployed to municipalities must work hard, smart and in a committed way to address all the matters addressed by the AG, which offers municipalities an independent guidance, advice and counsel on matters of delivery and development.
All our deployees in municipalities, who received matters and findings from the AG, must do everything in the legislation and policies to address those matters by complying with municipal policies, legislations as stipulated in the relevant legislations.
NB: This statement must attributed to the ANC EC Provincial Secretary Oscar Mabuyane.
For more information please contact
ANC Eastern Cape Acting Communications
Officer Judy Ngoloyi on 073 117 6194.
Email: judy.ngoloyi@gmail.com
