is sobering reading. Only 41 out of 257 municipalities achieved clean audits. Of the remaining 216, a total of 100 have unqualified audits with findings, 33 have been placed under administration and 25 have disclaimers, meaning that material facts needed to complete the audit were missing.
It’s not as if there are no mechanisms to turn this around. Running a municipality is not rocket science — it is nowhere near as complex as a large state-owned entity such as Eskom or SAA. If a few basic processes are in place such as requiring that a payment for goods be matched with a delivery note, that all purchases be justified by a budget item and that use of equipment and unplannable expenses like overtime be monitored and controlled, many problems would be eliminated.
Part of the problem is the war for control of the ANC. Neither side in the two major factions clearly has the upper hand. And neither is clean. Social media keeps erupting in battles that amount to “Our crooks are better than their crooks.
It is instructive to compare the PAAA with the MFMA. The MFMA states only that an official or politician who is responsible for this sort of financial irregularity is liable for the costs. The PAAA, on the other hand, provides for reporting a certificate of liability to the relevant legislature .
As we have learnt in Makana, a broad, sweeping assault is not necessarily the best idea; a sharp focused attack is better. For example, community activists won a comprehensive court victory over the mismanaged landfill site but it took years of threats of contempt to implement it. The municipality could fix a small range of issues whenever there was a threat of contempt, then stop bothering when the threat went away.