DEAR Editor,-
I refer to the article in last week’s paper headed ‘No improvements at Ugu and HCM’. The Auditor-General is reported as saying that there had been political interference, slowness to react, and the appointment of unsuitable candidates to key posts. He had met the Ugu mayor four times during the 2012/2013 financial year and these interactions had had no impact on the audit outcome.
There are reasons to question whether the outcome of this year’s audit report will be much better than the disclaimer from last year’s audit report. The Ugu Audit Committee, which consists of an attorney and two chartered accountants, informed council that the assets management issues have not been sorted out.
No progress has been made with the outsourcing of water meter readers (only 30 percent of Ugu’s water meters are read at present). There are serious problems in supply chain management. There were delays in the investigation of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure and the institution of disciplinary measures against officials. There are still officials who work up to 40 hours of overtime every month.
On the other hand, if you turn to the internal auditor’s report dated April 2014, it looks as though there is a sweetheart relationship between internal audit and management. The internal auditors’ detailed investigation on irregular, unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounting to R22 million recommends this should be condoned by council.
No action should be taken against liable supply chain management officials, or anybody else for that matter, because Ugu did not suffer any loss, but actually benefited from it because the public got their water and sanitation anyway!
With regards to senior appointments at the level of positions immediately accountable to the municipal manager, the Amended Municipal Structures Act states unequivocally that a person appointed to this level must at least have the skills, expertise, competence and qualifications as prescribed in the act. If we could have sight of their CVs, perhaps we could comment further.
The debtors book could be anywhere between R100m, R200m or R300m, depending on how much you set aside for impairment.
Of the four Ugu Portfolio Committee meetings scheduled for last week, not a single one took place. The most important one was SCOPA (standing committee on public accounts) or MPAC (municipal public accounts committee), as it is called at local government level.
This committee could be regarded as a sort of investigative arm of council which could look at ghost employees, excessive overtime, suspicious contracts and the like. To make it even worse, SCOPA meetings are held in public at government and provincial level as well as being held frequently, perhaps every month.
But Ugu is scheduled to meet only once a quarter, and again on this occasion could not raise a quorum at the meeting as the ANC has little regard for this sort of committee, which could throw some light in dark places.
The Municipal Finance Management Act deals with the resolution of financial problems in municipalities. There are types of provincial interventions which the provincial MEC may entertain under discretionary or mandatory interventions in a financial crisis.
Last year, Ugu asked province for help and assistance was provided from both Treasury and COGTA. Subsequent events indicate that little was achieved under this arrangement. This raises the spectre of a possible mandatory provincial intervention, which matter might soon be seen on the Provincial MEC’s desk for consideration.
DAVE SNASHALL
