The municipality held a special council meeting in Bloemfontein on Tuesday (21/7) to review the Auditor-General’s latest report, which outlined widespread financial mismanagement, maladministration and governance failures under city manager Sello More's administration.

A special council meeting set for Wednesday (15/7) failed to proceed after it did not reach the required quorum. Opposition parties, including the DA, FF Plus and Alliance of Social Democrats (ASD), criticised the absence of ANC councillors and More, accusing the ruling party of deliberately obstructing the meeting and preventing possible disciplinary action against the city manager.

“Today, the emperor is naked. Those who have accused us are the ones who are absent today. The ANC and its coalition partners are hell-bent on saving an individual called the city manager from disciplinary action. They are collapsing the council for that purpose,” ASD councillor Lucky Mongale said.

More issued certificate of debt

More has also reportedly been issued a certificate of debt, which allows the Auditor-General to hold accounting officers personally liable for financial losses caused by the mismanagement of public funds.

Presenting a progress report, financial misconduct disciplinary board chairperson Mamiki Selesho told council that the municipality had submitted historical reports on unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure that had not previously been investigated.

The Auditor-General and National Treasury have repeatedly urged the board to finalise the outstanding cases, but the large volume of documents and the complexity of the matters have delayed the process.

“A progress report has been sent to the accounting officer. I can confirm we are dealing with 17, not 15, matters involving unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” Selesho said.

Several issues had been combined in 15 of the matters to help the board move the investigations forward. One involved alleged irregular expenditure of R5.4bn. 

Mangaung is one of 16 Free State municipalities, and 69 nationally, affected by National Treasury’s decision to withhold equitable share funding. At a recent media briefing, deputy mayor and MMC for treasury Lulama Titi-Odili said the municipality expected R1.3bn in equitable share allocations, but R498m had already been withheld. 

It remains uncertain when the frozen funds will be released, even if the municipality complies with Treasury’s requirements. The withholding of funding is expected to affect basic service delivery because the equitable share supports the municipality’s daily operations.

Despite growing financial pressure and adverse audit findings, Mangaung metro continues to blame its governance, financial and service delivery failures on years of political instability and administrative dysfunction.

OFM News/Kekeletso Mosebetsi cvdw

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