'We are going backward': AG paints grim picture of financial management of municipalities

CAPE TOWN - Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke has once again painted a grim picture of the financial management of municipalities, which continues to regress.

She told Parliament on Tuesday morning that there had been little change in the 2022/23 audit outcomes despite commitments for improvement. 

This is the first full financial year under the control of the new local administrations elected in 2021. 

The audits reveal that only a third of the country’s 257 municipalities have obtained clean audits, the majority in the Western Cape. 

While 45 municipalities have improved their audit outcomes since 2020/21, 36 have regressed. 

Most municipalities received an unqualified audit opinion but with little effort made to move out of this category since the end of the previous administration. 

"If you look at the 34 clean audits, you can see quite clearly that we are going backward in terms of the number of clean audits that are being delivered within the local government system. We are further behind than where we began with this particular administration," Maluleke said.