This, after administrators from both Masilonyana and Mafube Local Municipalities failed to pitch on Wednesday. 

The financially troubled municipalities are amongst the Free State municipalities listed in the Auditor-General’s (AG) report as those needing urgent intervention. 

They are both currently under administration and their administrators will on September 17 be expected to appear before the committee alongside with the newly appointed provincial MEC for Cogta, Thembeni Nxangisa. 

The Chairperson of the Committee, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, has meanwhile expressed concern over the state of municipalities in the province and in addition requested the municipal council of Mafube to submit the resolutions that saw the appointment of its Municipal Manager.

The two municipalities were supposed to form part of the twelve municipalities that the committee arranged to engage following the recent AG report. Their two-day hearing was specifically aimed at municipalities that either incurred a disclaimer or adverse audit opinions in the past five consecutive years.

Following their engagement with municipalities in Limpopo, the Northern Cape and in the North West, Hlengwa in a statement said the “committee has noted that all the municipalities it held hearings with have disclaimers for three to four consecutive years. It also became apparent that municipalities rely heavily on consultants despite the fact that there are officials employed in those functions”.

He added that “other reasons that have contributed to the problems these municipalities are facing, include leadership instability, non-compliance with legislation, no proper recordkeeping, a lack of monitoring tools, a lack of internal controls and all these have resulted in the millions of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure”.

OFM News