Maile calls for culture of accountability in Gauteng metros
Gauteng Finance MEC Lebogang Maile has called on municipalities to enforce a culture of accountability.
Maile addressed the media on Thursday about the audit outcomes of Gauteng municipalities.
This is after the auditor general, Tsakani Maluleke, announced a week ago that the number of financial statements submitted by municipalities to her office had shown a slight improvement.
However, Midvaal remained the only municipality out of the 11 in Gauteng that achieved a clean audit.
Briefing the media on Thursday, Maile said that most municipalities still needed to comply with procurement legislation.
He called on council oversight committees to hold executive leadership accountable for the implementation of service delivery plans.
"We call upon the speakers of the council, municipal public accounts committees and other council committees to instil a culture of good governance by promptly investigating unauthorised, irregular and wasteful expenditure by ensuring that the disciplinary boards are functioning and efficient.”
The City of Tshwane, which maintained unqualified audits with the findings for the first three years under review, received an adverse opinion in the 2021-2022 financial year
The metro received a qualified opinion in the 2022-2023 financial year.
Maile said this marks a significant improvement.
He says stronger fiscal controls will improve governance and allow more resources to be directed towards critical areas of service delivery.
"We intend to continue to work together with the Office of the Auditor-General of South Africa, the Gauteng-Cogta and SALGA, as well as our municipalities, to foster a culture of an accountability ecosystem and proactively monitor performance.
"Ultimately, our objective is to provide support to improve our municipalities' audit opinions, which has a direct impact on service delivery. Stronger fiscal controls will not only improve governance, but they will also allow for more resources to be directed towards critical areas of service delivery, ensuring that we build better and more resilient communities.”
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