Municipalities in financial distress reluctant to accept AG's help, Parly hears

CAPE TOWN - Municipalities in financial distress are reluctant to accept help from the Auditor General (AG), Parliament has heard.  

Audit officials have told the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) that Free State municipalities have even refused to receive advice on improving their revenue collection to aid better service delivery.  

The province has the most municipalities that regularly fail to submit audited financial statements on time.  

The AG’s office has painted a dire picture of the dysfunctionality of Free State municipalities.  

Portfolio head Sharonne Adams said there is little effort to fix water and electricity meters that could help these municipalities generate more funds.  

Programmes to help them collect more money have also been flatly rejected. 

“When we started that programme with some of the municipalities that we identified, they refused, basically to say we don’t want to do anything about it,” Adams said. 

“There was this reluctance to do the right thing when we looked at the solutions to support them in a better way.”  

She said disciplinary action against municipal officials is poor, and in the Northern Cape, a mayor squashed a material irregularity finding by the AG without a proper investigation.  

“What we find then is the credibility of this report that goes to the council is not credible, decisions are then made not on credible information.”  

SCOPA chairman Songezo Zibi said these councils and provincial executives will be hauled before the committee to explain their actions.