The Gert Sibande District Municipality (GSDM) received a clean audit opinion by the Auditor-General (AG) for the 2017/2018 financial year.
The Executive Mayor of GSDM, Mr Muzi Chirwa, has been consistent in his remarks, since coming into office in August 2016, about running an efficient, legislative compliant institution whose financials and performance is free from material misstatements and material findings.
The last time GSDM received a clean audit was in 2011. During his first address in office, Mr Chirwa encouraged the political and administrative leadership to be conscious of the goal to achieve and maintain a clean audit.
Three months into office, Mr Chirwa received a qualified audit which was a regress from a previous report from the AG for the 2015/16 financial year due to issues which were soon remedied and an unqualified audit report for 2016/17 was received.
During the 2017/18 financial year, the institution ensured that all challenges influencing financials and the management thereof, were addressed.
One of them was the non-filling of critical positions which led to the positions of General Manager for Planning and Economic Development, General Manager for Corporate Services and General Manager for Community and Social Services to be filled.
The GSDM leadership avoided occurrences of fruitless and wasteful expenditure and cost reduction measures were tightened.
The goal to achieve a clean audit was one which was shared with the seven local municipalities with the vision of the current political and administrative leadership being to reach a point where all municipalities in GSDM will improve on financial and performance management and ultimately, on the audit opinion by the AG.
On its role to coordinate and support local municipalities, GSDM made strides to assist the municipalities improve by employing senior managers which were deployed within the municipalities to assist in the finance departments.
Msukaligwa is one of the three municipalities, including Dipaleseng and Mkhondo, to first receive this service from the GSDM after signing a memorandum of understanding in July 2018.
Local municipalities face numerous challenges which pose a threat to municipal financial viability and stability which include ageing infrastructure, the Eskom and water debt, low revenue collection, violent protests which costs more than the municipal budget can afford and more often than not, sets back planned development.
During his remarks on the last meeting of council, held on 6 December 2018, the executive mayor once again reiterated that although the institution had reached its goal, the biggest challenge was to maintain the standard and avoid a regress.
Council applauded GSDM for the clean audit opinion.
