LIMPOPO – GREATER Giyani mayor Pat Hlungwani has vowed to take the municipality’s finances to a clean audit finish line, something which his predecessors failed to attain during their terms in office.
Speaking during the presentation of the municipality’s budget held recently at the Giyani Community Hall, the mayor said he was pleased that the municipality had shown some significant improvement since he started working towards a clean audit.
This comes after he urged all personnel to work towards obtaining a clean audit last year, saying the council would take decisions on those responsible if there were no improvements.
“Today we’re happy to report that the progress made thus far is promising. We have moved from the previous negative audit opinion to obtaining a qualified audit report,” he said.
A qualified audit opinion is issued when the Auditor-General encountered one of two types of situations which did not comply with generally accepted accounting principles but the rest of the financial statements were fairly presented.
“We have therefore received a bonus of R10 million from the national government to be used towards the improvement of our infrastructure.
“We really appreciate the good work done by our officials, and now our next target to get a clean audit,” he added.
He went on to say that while water scarcity had been a challenge in the municipality, this problem was now being resolved since president Jacob Zuma intervened last year.
“As a municipality, we are starting to see remarkable progress with regard to water supply to our communities.
“We are told that although on a very small scale, for the first time in many years, clean water is able to reach 36 of the targeted 55 villages in our municipality,” he said, urging communities to be patient.
On the issue of roads infrastructure maintenance, the mayor said the municipality was aware of the existing backlog, and had therefore appointment a team to deal with it.
“We cannot downplay the seriousness of the backlog we are having in as far as road infrastructure is concerned. We have therefore appointed a pool of contractors that will deal with this challenge,” he said.
The total budget for the municipality this year is R352 million. Opposition parties welcomed the budget, warning that the municipality should monitor how the budget was implemented to avoid the issue of it being mismanaged.
On behalf of the ACDP, Willy Mhlongo said: “Monitoring is key. We urge the municipality to ensure quality work and better services for the community”.
