The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) has raised concerns over governance and service delivery challenges at Mangaung Metro Municipality, following a briefing from the Auditor-General on the 2023/24 audit outcomes this week.
The Auditor-General’s report emphasised misalignment between Mangaung’s Integrated Development Plan, Service Delivery and Budget Implementation Plan and its overall budget.
Mr Odwa Duda, Business Unit Leader at the Auditor-General’s office, told SCOPA there was a misalignment at Mangaung Metro on issues around planning. “We observed that they would budget and plan to do things, go and conduct public participation, collate the information but when you look at their performance in terms of focus, you find there is misalignment,” he said.
Mangaung Metro, located in the Free State province, has now received three consecutive qualified audit opinions, in 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2023/24.
SCOPA Chairperson Mr Songezo Zibi said the committee is prioritising oversight on municipalities in the 7th Parliament due to their critical role in delivering basic services. “Every home, business and government installation is in a municipality, meaning municipalities are at the forefront of service delivery,” he observed.
He added, “When governance is not working in municipalities, the processes aren’t working, the money is not being managed properly, people get away with corruption and maladministration and it is impossible to deliver services efficiently under those conditions.”
Mangaung Metro continues to face financial instability, despite receiving support from National and Provincial Treasury. “Even after this assistance, we still haven’t seen much impact. We continue to observe many financial health challenges,” said Mr Duda.
A lack of skilled personnel and ineffective contract management within the infrastructure unit has led to stalled and failed projects, further eroding service delivery. In the 2023/24 financial year, the municipality achieved only 45% of its service delivery targets despite spending 111% of the allocated budget.
Ms Sue-Ellen Steenbok, Deputy Business Unit Leader at the Auditor-General’s Office, reported that the municipality receives around R6 billion in its budget, yet allocates only R792 million to capital expenditure. “For a metro needing to deal with infrastructure problems, they are clearly not spending enough on infrastructure,” she told the committee.
She added that while Mangaung did submit a funded budget, unauthorised expenditure remains high. “Their capital expenditure is below the norm, and their spending on repairs and maintenance is only 2%, whereas National Treasury has indicated they should be spending 8%,” Ms Steenbok said.
The situation is made worse by unresolved material irregularities. Of the 17 flagged by the Auditor-General, only one has been resolved. “We’re currently dealing with a situation where the accounting officer is not taking appropriate action,” Ms Steenbok said.
“We can refer the matter to the Special Investigating Unit, Public Protector, or, in environmental cases, to the Department of Water and Sanitation, which we’ve already done. We can also recommend actions in the audit report to ensure accountability. The final step would be issuing a certificate of debt, but we hope it doesn’t come to that at Mangaung. For now, we’re still in the remedial stage.”
Mr Zibi emphasised that SCOPA is considering intervention options. “What is apparent is there is a systemic breakdown all the way. It’s not just in the municipalities, there is a system of accountability that is supposed to work before this committee gets involved,” he noted. “The committee is going to take advice from Parliament in terms of who it can call to come and account and in what sequence.”
Faith Ndenze
9 May 2025
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