Municipal Manager Pravine Naidoo says the best Makana Municipality can hope for in its forthcoming audit is a qualified opinion.
Municipal Manager Pravine Naidoo says the best Makana Municipality can hope for in its forthcoming audit is a qualified opinion.
Unauthorised spending of R48.3 million and irregular spending of R39.5 million make up the R87.8 million total that sealed the fate of the municipality in the Auditor General’s (AG) 2011-2012 report, published on Tuesday 13 August.
Now Makana seems to be heading for another cliff as the prospect of a fourth consecutive disclaimer looms. The first item on the agenda of Makana’s council meeting on Tuesday 13 August was the late submission of the annual financial statement for the financial year ending June 2013.
The financial statement must be submitted to the AG by the end of this month.
The reason given for submitting it late was the resignation of former chief financial officer Danny Sahibdeen.
In a scramble to meet the legislated deadline, consultants will be brought in. “The municipality will be outsourcing assistance to help with the qualified audit opinion for three months,” said Mayor Zamuxolo Peter, who added that R2 million had been budgeted for this.
The municipality now aims to have most of its statement ready by 31 August. Naidoo said the municipality hopes to achieve at least a qualified opinion from the AG. “I cannot promise that we can go from a disclaimer to a clean audit in three months. This is not possible,” he said.
Makana wasn’t the only municipality that performed dismally.
Auditor General Terence Nombembe said only three municipalities and three municipal entities had improved on their previous audit outcomes and produced clean audit reports. The Eastern Cape performed particularly badly – it was the only province that failed to receive a single clean audit. The Auditor General has declared three successive disclaimers on Makana Municipality.
A disclaimer for the 2012/2013 financial year would be the fourth.
