SASOLBURG – Provincial Treasury will assist struggling municipalities with skilled experts to improve their audit outcomes.

This was revealed by MEC for Finance Ketso Makume on the first day of the oversight visit by the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in Bloemfontein on July 24.

Municipalities came under scrutiny from the committee following the outcomes of the Auditor-General’s report, which painted a dire situation around municipalities in the Free State.

Not a single municipality in the Free State province obtained a clean audit. In Nala local municipality, for instance, Amos Goliath has been appointed as an administrator following months of instability, which saw the institution with two Chief Financial Officers and two Speakers.

This led to instability, which often spilled out onto the streets with service delivery protests. To counter that situation, MEC for Cooperative Governance, Traditional Affairs and Human Settlements, Saki Mokoena, said he would engage the political party whose mayor had been deployed to the institution.

Makume said the move to deploy experts will empower struggling municipalities in the province.

“We will deploy our experts to our municipalities to assist. We are obviously concerned by the AuditorGeneral’s report, but it is also an opportunity to improve governance in our municipalities so that ultimately, they do what is expected of them, which is to provide services to the people,” said Makume.

The move to deploy experts to municipalities will not only empower them but also save the institutions money.

“Making use of consultants is costly and has not borne fruit because we did not get a single clean audit. We are therefore going to make use of internal capacity to assist our municipalities and lift them out of this rot,” he said.

In a no-holds-barred interaction, chairperson of the committee Dr. Zweli Mkhize demanded to know, particularly from Lejweleputswa District Municipality, what they do for their respective communities, given the problems they face.

“What is it that you do? The conditional grant that you receive is used to pay salaries, and there is little left for service delivery. The question then becomes: What do you do for the people?” queried Mkhize.