Municipality’s capacity to manage R1.2-billion in flood funding comes under scrutiny

More than R1.2-billion in KwaDukuza flood repair funding will not be properly managed unless 18 new staff are hired.

This was the message delivered by both the KwaDukuza Municipality (KDM) civil engineering department and internal audit teams to council last week.

KDM received a conditional grant of R1.271-billion from national treasury in April, with a view to completing 401 flood repair projects in the 12 months after the grant was received.

The grant is more than KDM’s annual capital expenditure and therefore represents a significant administrative challenge for the municipality at current staffing levels.

A capital budget of R950.8-million was approved for the 2023/24 financial year which began on July 1, and both capital allocations will need to be managed concurrently.

“The grant comes with onerous requirements, and failure to comply with said requirements may result in underspending and the subsequent recall of the grant and/or portions thereof by the relevant national authority,” reads the civil engineering report.

“An assessment of the current capacity within the civil engineering business unit indicates that certain sections are barely coping with the current workload and the additional workload attributable to the receipt of the disaster grant will result in serious non-performance of various tasks, serious delays in inspecting of assets constructed, capitalisation of constructed assets as well as in the reporting and management of the grant.”

The department asked for 11 new staff, including a programme manager, seven civil engineers and three civil engineering technologists.

Given the level of professional employees requested, it appears the hiring process should have already been underway with the stringent time constraints.

Whether the hiring and bedding-in of new employees will be able to be done in time to make a functional difference remains to be seen.

The internal audit department, which has long been lobbying for increased resources, will be similarly hamstrung by the extra work that the municipal grant brings.

Internal auditors are in place to manage ongoing municipal finance processes and to seek out any financial impropriety.

It is a crucial department in a municipality, which should ideally be able to oversee and identify problems before year-end external audits.

But despite raising repeated concerns about inadequate resource and staffing allocations, the department remains in jeopardy.

“The unit has not for the past years completed the audit assignments as per the approved audit plan. The additional amount received, and with the appointment of the various service providers and contractors to perform the various obligations, internal audit will have to ensure that all supply chain management processes were followed in the appointments,” the report stated.

The department requested two senior audit managers and five internal auditors to make up the shortfall.

Swift action is needed to ensure the municipality is able to properly use the service delivery funds.

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