The Provincial Coronavirus Command Council resolved to closely monitor all departments and municipalities, to ensure early detection and intervention of non-compliant financial management practices.

This comes during an outcry in the country about the looting of state money in various departments and municipalities with millions of rands either mismanaged or stolen.

A few days ago the JB Marks Municipality, which includes Potchefstroom, made headlines for the wrong reasons when it was alleged that it spent R750 on one litre of sanitiser.

In May this year, OFM News reported that the North West Health Department suspended four of its senior officials, including its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), over alleged tender fraud.

In July, the Auditor-General (AG) Kimi Makwetu, said out of the 22 municipalities, only 17 audits were completed and five were outstanding as at 31 January 2020.

The report further highlighted that there has been significant regression on audit outcomes.

This, as no municipality acquired an unqualified audit opinion whilst eight received qualified audit opinions; nine received disclaimer audit opinions while five audits are outstanding.

This regression resulted from an increase on irregular expenditure from R4,7 billion (2017/18) to R5,4 billion which related to bid adjudication committees that were not properly constituted, unfair procurement processes, inadequate contract management and tolerance for deviations from competitive processes without sound reasons.

Municipalities which are said to be the main contributors in the increase of irregular expenditure includes Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality with R1,56 billion (unaudited); Rustenburg Local Municipality with R919,8 million and JB Marks Local Municipality with R680,8 million.

OFM News