Pretoria - Gauteng MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs and Human Settlements, Paul Mashatile, has congratulated the local government in the province following the Auditor General’s report on the country’s 2014/15 municipal audit outcomes.
According to Auditor General Kimi Makwetu, 33% of municipalities in Gauteng achieved clean audit opinions, with 50% of municipalities having achieved unqualified audit opinions and only 16% achieved adverse audit opinions.
“The department, in partnership with Gauteng Provincial Treasury and municipalities have achieved major improvement in municipality audit outcomes as it relates to both the achievement of clean and unqualified audit outcomes and a massive reduction of both audit report and management letter issues, as raised by the auditor general,” said Mashatile.
As an urgent intervention, the MEC added that support to the two municipalities with negative opinions has been intensified for the 2016/17 financial year.
“The auditor general’s report reflects directly on the efforts and interventions between the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and municipalities to improve the efficiency of local government.
“Through our interventions we are able to see improvement on the performance of municipalities in the province. Gauteng municipalities have become strong and capable institutions that are managed and governed efficiently. This is due to the interventions to make these municipalities financially viable,” said MEC Mashatile.
He attributed these successes to capacity building, training skills development, hands on approach and technical support rendered to all municipalities.
“Our interventions have paid off in a big way and we see increased accountability and good management of our finances. We have successfully improved systems to increase the level of service delivery in local government and we will continue to improve all levels of service delivery.”
He also commended local government structure on their commitment to ensure that local government image is no longer an image of reckless management wasteful expenditure and the lack of systems.
“We believe our drive for 100 percent clean audit its gaining traction and starting to pay dividends.” – SAnews.gov.za
