One Makana Municipality councillor was in tears after executive mayor Nomhle Gaga announced in the middle of a marathon council meeting on Wednesday, that the municipality had received a qualified audit outcome from the Auditor General's office.
One Makana Municipality councillor was in tears after executive mayor Nomhle Gaga announced in the middle of a marathon council meeting on Wednesday, that the municipality had received a qualified audit outcome from the Auditor General's office.
This follows a string of disclaimers in past years.
ANC chief whip Julie Wells could not hold back her emotions after the announcement.
Praise for the hard work that led to the municipality's turnaround was quickly directed towards the municipality's outgoing acting Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Busi Khumalo, who was deployed to help the embattled municipality by the provincial treasury as a Section 154 (1) manager last year.
After Gaga made the announcement, councillors rose from their chairs, applauding Khumalo and chanting her name.
Wells thanked Khumalo for her contribution to Makana, saying she had been actively convincing her to stay at the municipality until its finances improved.
"You are going to have a fabulous career from now on wherever you go, and we are going to have a fixed municipality," she said.
Makana Municipality received four consecutive disclaimers – the worst possible audit outcome – from the Auditor General's office, until the qualified audit opinion announced this week.
The municipality is, however, still without a permanent municipal manager, CFO and Director of Infrastructure and Technical Services.
Khumalo leaves her position as acting CFO at the end of this month, when her contract comes to an end. However, her leave begins on 11 December.
There was a lot of discussion in the meeting about who would replace Khumalo and when that person would take over. The decision was finally taken to give acting municipal manager, Riana Meiring, delegation authority to approach the provincial treasury and ask them to deploy an acting CFO to replace Khumalo at the beginning of January.
If this option fails, the municipality will have to look internally to find someone to act in the position. Finance deputy director, Marius Crouse, was suggested as a possible acting CFO.
Meiring's contract as the acting municipal manager was extended for a further three months, as were the positions of Etienne Mager and Dali Mlenzana as acting directors of corporate services and technical and infrastructure services respectively.
During the five-hour-long meeting, municipal directors also came under fire for their lack of supervision of junior employees. Of particular concern were excessive overtime claims.
Gaga said she would place a moratorium on overtime if necessary.
"Work is not completed – yet we are already on 62% of our overtime budget. Consequence management needs to be done. People must just do their jobs," she said.
Social services portfolio committee chairperson, Mabhuti Matyumza, also weighed in on the matter, saying, "If it boils down to money being deducted from employees, so be it".
Matyumza said the municipality's internal auditors, HR department and the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) need to team up and investigate the excessive overtime claims.
"There is a lack of monitoring here, people do as they please," he said.
There was an overwhelming feeling in the meeting that directors need to get out of their offices and monitor municipal workers who are meant to be providing services to citizens. Council Speaker Yandisa Vara urged directors to monitor municipal employees because that is part of their job.
"Directors, please go out and monitor that people are working," she said.
This was the last council meeting of the year, the next one will be on 29 January.
anele@grocotts.co.za
