Only 18 of the 257 South African municipalities are functional

Die Vryburger

Only 18 of the 257 South African municipalities are functional
Only 18 of the 257 South African municipalities are functional

The Auditor-General, Kimi Makwetu, put the finger on the big issue facing the economy of the country. In his latest report, he shows that politicians and officials simply ignore his office’s recommendations.

The other truth that emerged is that municipal councils do not have the necessary skills to handle finance. Only 18 of the 257 municipalities in the country received clean audits, a worsening of the 33 who received clean reports in 2015 – 2016.

Almost 33% of the councils spend more than they bring in which is a total debt of R5.8bn. Unauthorized spending of R1.3 billion is water under the bridge that will never be recovered.

North West, Limpopo and the Free State have no municipalities that received a clean audits. Then add the R9.12bn debt of Eskom and R5.85bn of the Water councils, it then paints a pale picture of the state of the country’s municipalities.

In the 2017-18 financial year, 18% of the Councils did not have a municipal managers for a period, while financial managers’ average “life span” is 37 months.

Read the original article in Afrikaans on Die Vryburger

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