Gauteng municipalities suffer "material losess" from unpaid electricity bills
Gauteng municipalities are failing to receive clean audits partly because they can't collect money for electricity bills.
Gauteng municipalities had "material losses" of R787 million from unpaid electricity bills in the 2008/09 financial year, up from R196m in losses the year before, said corporate executive for audit, Barry Wheeler, of the Auditor-General's Office.
Wheeler was part of an AG team which yesterday ad-dressed Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane and the province's municipal mayors and officials about municipal audit results for 2008/09.
The municipal financial year runs from July to June.
Wheeler said the failure to collect the electricity debts was one of the reasons why Gauteng municipalities still fail to get clean audit reports.
Another problem was unauthorised and irregular expenditure. In 2008/09, the municipalities had R552m in unauthorised expenditure and R641m in irregular expenditure that was approved.
Auditor-General Terence Nombembe said the municipalities' audit statuses were im-proving slowly.
"In most municipalities the capacity is there, it's just a question of streamlining the work habits," he said.
The Tshwane metro is one of four Gauteng municipalities which is not improving.
In 2004/05 the Tshwane metro and the Emfuleni local municipality both received qualified audits, and four years later, in 2008/09, they were still getting qualified audits.
Local municipalities Kungwini and Nokeng Tsa Taemane both had the more damning status of audit disclaimers in 2004/05. Kungwini is again expected to get a disclaimer for 2008/09 while Nokeng Tsa Taemane improved a little to get a qualified audit.
During the same time, the City of Joburg improved from a disclaimer to become the only one of the 12 Gauteng municipalities to achieve a clean audit in 2008/09.
The Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market was the only one of the 26 municipal entities to get a clean audit for 2008/09.
Kungwini was the only Gauteng municipality to receive a disclaimer for 2008/09, and Tshwane, Emfuleni and Nokeng Tsa Taemane got qualified audits.
Some other Gauteng municipalities retained their status of financially unqualified audits with other matters.
The only municipal entity to receive a disclaimer for 2008/09 was the Tshwane Housing Company. No municipalities or entities got adverse audits.
Nine of the municipalities and 24 entities got unqualified audits with other matters.
Results overall were better than the 2007/08 audits.
Gauteng municipalities owe the AG's office R7.8 million for audit work.
The Star
Posted at 09:34AM Mar 05, 2010 by Editor in Market |