Parliament, Thursday, 29 October 2020 – The Limpopo permanent delegates to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) encouraged the Thabazimbi, Modimolle-Mookgophong, and Mogalakwena local municipalities to fill, as a matter of urgency, municipal manager positions, and that they should also appoint seasoned researchers for the Municipal Public Accounts Committees (MPAC) in order to arrest financial irregularities internally.
The delegation said this after visiting the three municipalities as part of the national Provincial Week Programme in the province, and it was accompanied by representatives from the South African Local Government Association (Salga), the provincial Treasury, and the Department of Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, as well as the national Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
The delegation focused on specific areas with regard to the well-being of these municipalities, including spending on conditional grants, use of consultants, financial management and recovery plans, municipal debts, audit outcomes, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The delegation then observed that these municipalities are bedevilled by poor financial management, resulting in misappropriation of public funds, as well as negatively affecting service delivery.
It also conducted site inspection at some of the conditional grant projects in Modimolle-Mookgophong and Mogalakwena municipalities, and discovered that most of these projects have challenges such as budget overruns, as well as irregular project extensions and payments.
“Our assessment is that all the financial irregularities and poor project planning occurs because, in some instances, the MPAC is non-existent, or if it is there, it is simply ineffective. The MPAC plays a critical role in holding the executive accountable on municipal finances,” said Mr Tshitereke Matibe, the Leader of the delegation.
The three municipalities have huge debt with Eskom, and the delegation tasked the Mayors and Acting Municipal Managers to urgently provide financial recovery plans and action plans to address other problematic areas, including, among other things, audit outcomes, vacancy rate, functionality of portfolio committees, consequence management, the salary bill and operational expenses.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHAL OF THE LEADER OF THE LIMPOPO PERMANENT DELEGATES TO THE NCOP, MR TSHITEREKE MATIBE.
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