AG's office sounds warning on financial viability of Joburg & Tshwane

CAPE TOWN - The Auditor-General's office has sounded the warning on the financial viability of the country’s two biggest metros - Johannesburg and Tshwane.

It said their current financial health doesn’t bode well for successful service delivery in the future.

Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) on Wednesday discussed the 2022/23 audit outcomes, which the Auditor-General's office has told Parliament has shown no real improvement over previous years.

Despite an unqualified finding for 2022/23, the Auditor-General's office says the City of Johannesburg still has a multitude of problems it needs to sort out, including the collection of debt, non-compliance with finance laws and electricity and water losses.

The AG's business unit leader for Gauteng, Dumisani Cebekhulu, said the city was not spending enough on maintaining infrastructure nor investing sufficiently in new projects.

"We have also noted challenges as it relates to financial health that is due to poor collection that we are seeing as it relates to key entities such as Johannesburg Water and Johannesburg City Power which are revenue generating entities."

While fruitless and wasteful expenditure at the City of Johannesburg is in excess of a billion rand, in the City of Tshwane it's three times as much.

"If financial health-related concerns or matters are not addressed, there's going to be lots of challenges going forward, not only for the City of Tshwane, but also the City of Joburg."

The Auditor-General said it was also concerning that these metros tabled budgets for expenditure that exceeded projected revenue.