DEAR Editor,-
The Auditor-General has five options to choose from when he makes his report after conducting an audit at a municipality. They range from a clean audit, to an unqualified audit, to a qualified audit, to an adverse audit, to a disclaimer.
In the case of Ugu District Council, he stated that he was unable to provide a basis for an audit opinion. In plainer language, this means that the way Ugu operates its financial affairs is so rotten that it has sunk to the very abyss of unaccountability.
Let’s look at some of the things he says in his report. Ugu’s management cannot account for its property, plant and equipment. He is unable to audit the provision for leave pay due to deficiencies in the system.
Senior officials at Ugu sell hundreds of thousands of rands worth of leave pay back to the municipality, as can be seen in the annual report. Management was unable to provide evidence that it had charged and accounted for all service charges revenue (water and sanitation), due to poor internal control in billing and the estimation thereof.
He went on to say that he was unable to obtain audit evidence due to inadequate records and reconciliations.
The Auditor-General expressed his doubt that Ugu can carry on as a going concern, because its unspent conditional grants had been used for operational expenses and were no longer cash-backed.
There were poor internal controls within the supply chain management function involving R44 million in unauthorised expenditure. Fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounted to R800 000.
These are but a few of the things the Auditor-General is unhappy about at Ugu.
Hard-pressed voters who find themselves in a position where it is very difficult to cope with ever-increasing costs, may find some small solace in the decision taken by provincial government that, because of the disclaimer from the Auditor-General, no increases would be granted to councillors at Ugu, the increases would have been back-dated to July last year, so a substantial amount is involved.
There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the ANC councillors, but they have surely brought this upon themselves with weak and ineffectual leadership at executive committee level.
There is a national election on May 7, which affects both first and second tiers of government. It might be appropriate for voters to decide that the deployment of unqualified and incompetent comrades and cadres has passed its zenith and must now plummet to is nadir in order that the republic may prosper.
CLLR DAVE SNASHALL
