Ray Nkonyeni Municipality (RNM) has received an unqualified audit opinion with findings for the 2017/2018 financial year.
The announcement was made at a full council meeting on Tuesday this week by officials from the office of the Auditor-General (AG) who stressed that accounting officers needed to ensure compliance with all laws and regulations governing financial matters.
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According to the AG, RNM’s financial statements represented fairly in accordance with the South African Standards of Generally Recognised Accounting Practice.
The findings largely relate to the AG’s determining that certain supply-chain processes and debt collection within the ambit of the Municipal Finance Management Act were not properly complied with.
The AG stressed that the municipality was still lacking on reaching set targets to ensure maximum basic service delivery.
“Management did not design standard operating procedures to support credible performance reporting on refuse removal,” the report said.
In terms of the procurement and contract management procedure, the AG found that the bid documentation for procurement of commodities designated for local content and production did not stipulate the minimum threshold for local production as required by law.
The AG emphasised that the accounting officer needed to ensure procurement processes and supply chain policies were adhered to.
The municipality had a zero spend on unauthorised expenditure (money spent not in accordance with the budget vote), irregular expenditure amounting to R38 301 301 and a fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R932 391 that could have been avoided.
The municipality also has bad debt amounting to close to R15-million.
Commenting on the AG’s report RNM mayor Cynthia Mqwebu said the municipality had worked hard to try and achieve a clean audit outcome with no findings.
“We have already formulated an action plan to deal with matters raised by the AG. These plans were approved by council today (Tuesday) and will see management taking decisive steps to ensure that by the end of the current financial year, all issues have been adequately addressed.”
Municipal manager Max Mbili shared similar sentiments, saying findings that the municipality had failed to collect money owed for refuse removal and money spent where there was no need would in future be corrected.
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