LIMPOPO – Speaking at the municipality’s strategic planning meeting on Wednesday, Greater Giyani Mayor Thandi Zitha revealed that the municipality has once again obtained an unqualified audit opinion, repeating the achievement from last year.

The mayor said this accomplishment reflects the municipality’s ongoing efforts to strengthen financial accountability and improve service delivery. “In this strategic planning meeting, we are reflecting on ourselves to determine whether the goals we set out to achieve last year are materialising and, if not, to identify where we are falling short. However, I am pleased to inform the community of Giyani that we have achieved much of what we had planned,” said the mayor.

She expressed her satisfaction with the municipality’s progress and emphasised the municipality’s determination to continue looking for solutions that would help them provide better service to the communities.

“Currently our good work is supported by evidence from the Auditor General, who indicated that we obtained an unqualified audit opinion.”

Despite this positive achievement, the mayor acknowledged that the Auditor General also outlined three key areas where the municipality needs to improve in order to achieve a clean audit.

One of these areas is the financial statements, which she noted was one of the main reason for their failure to secure a clean audit.

“If you recall, we undertook a ring-road project at Siyandhani village, which we reported as completed in June. While it was indeed completed at that time, our inspection revealed some additional snags that needed to be addressed to fully complete the road,” she explained. “This required us to allocate additional funds beyond the original project budget to cover the cost of the snag list. Unfortunately, this negatively impacted the auditors’ assessment, which is why we did not achieve a clean audit,” she said.

Looking ahead, the mayor emphasised the importance of learning from these experiences to improve future performance. She called on all municipal stakeholders to collaborate in overcoming the identified challenges and ensuring better results in the coming years.

“As a municipality, we are committed to continuous improvement by addressing our shortcomings through the implementation of corrective measures and strengthening oversight mechanisms. The progress we have made so far is encouraging, but we cannot afford to be complacent. We are determined to improve in these areas and meet our targets. Our ultimate goal is to achieve a clean audit,” concluded the mayor, assuring the community of Giyani of an improved service delivery.