Programme director,
The Honourable MEC: Mme Rosinah Semenya
Your Excellencies; Executive Mayors
Your Excellencies, Mayors,
Councillors
Departmental and municipal officials present here
SALGA representatives
National and Provincial treasury representatives
Office of the Auditor General representatives
DWA officials
DBSA representatives
Municipal demarcation Board officials
Ladies and gentlemen
Good morning,
Programme Director, four years ago, on the 29 September 2009, The Premier, MEC for COGHSTA, MEC for Treasury, Chairperson of SCOPA and the Chairperson of SALGA signed a pledge as a commitment to OPERATION CLEAN AUDIT 2014. 30 of our municipalities in the province have solemnly made a commitment that by 2014 they will have achieved clean audit on their annual financial statements and maintain systems for sustaining quality financial statements and management of information.
Municipalities were unequivocal in their commitment that they will strengthen their oversight, accountability and governance thereby building public confidence and delivery of services to better the lives of the communities they serve. As servants of the people we must meet in this fashion in the interest of the people we have agreed to serve and take stock as to whether we are making the necessary impact and headways in bringing about the change and development the people yearn for.
The question is whether we have a story to tell on the commitment we have made on 2014 clean audit. This gathering follows two important meetings, one convened by me, as CoGHSTA MEC on the 15th August 2013 and the other gathering was the one that was summoned by our Premier, Honourable Stanley Chupu Mathabatha on the 5th September 2013.
In my meeting with all the Limpopo Mayors, we collectively emphasised the urgent need to commit to an efficient, effective and development-oriented institution of local government. The premier on the other hand at his meeting with all the municipalities on the 5th September 2013 at Bolivia Lodge highlighted a worrying trend and said: "It is worrying that some of the challenges highlighted in the Auditor General's report are not new. They have been raised in the previous audit reports, but nothing seem to have been done and therefore no improvement whatsoever. This cannot be accepted and therefore cannot be justified"
Ladies and gentlemen, I am drawing your attention to these not because you suffer from amnesia but because you are the right people who must get these things right unapologetically. It is a responsibility which must be carried out with precision and diligence more especially in this sphere of government as we forge ahead full steam into the third decade of our democracy in an endeavour to make an impact in the lives of the people we represent.
It has been said over and over again and it is known by all of us in this gathering that local government is the most important sphere and as we celebrate 20 years of our democracy we must do so cognisance of the things that we must avoid if we are to truly transform our society that is still plagued by high rate of unemployment, inequality and rampant poverty. All eyes have been on us since the dawn of democracy and the questions that are being asked all around and everywhere are: Have we been responsive? Have we been effective and efficient? Did we create an accountable local government?
These are simple questions to which we must provide straight forward responses but we might find them hard and tough to respond to. It is important that we must go deeper in understanding this important sphere of government as we continue to battle with the important challenges presented to us by the current democratic dispensation particularly in the area of local government.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have been entrusted with an important task and responsibility of anchoring change and development in the sphere of Local Government. The National Development Plan (NDP) has identified corruption as a serious stumbling block and our important task of changing and developing society cannot be realised as long as corruption is rampant in our municipalities. This is a stumbling block that needs to be dealt with in all its facets at this sphere of government.
We must be the first ones to express sheer disgust that corruption is wrong and fight it in its various forms. Our officials must get a crystal clear message that should they be involved in corrupt activities they should be brought to book. SALGA National Members Assembly has sufficiently dealt with this pertinent issue. We must reaffirm local government as the coalface of service delivery and not of fraud and corruption.
The challenge of fraud and corruption must remain an important priority for the sector. This is so because corruption is a challenge that diminishes the advances we are making to build a better life for our people. We should by now know better that self-enrichment through unscrupulous means is simply not what the defenceless poor expect from us and of us. We must be steadfast in our commitment to better the lives of the people of Limpopo.
You will remember that the meeting convened by the Premier in September was as a result of negative picture painted by the Auditor General on the state of our municipalities. Understanding that municipalities are best located to lead in the delivery of services to our communities, an intervention at that level was needed to emphasise the need for improvement in order to avert the situation deteriorating to a point of complete paralysis of our municipalities, which will obviously have dire consequences on the lives of many of our people.
Now that the Auditor General has completed his task and issued final audit reports for 2012/13, municipalities are called on to develop audit remedial plans for submission to the Department and Provincial Treasury before the 20th December 2013. This must be done in order for the Department to make comments before approval by Council as required by Section 131 of MFMA. Municipalities should also convene audit steering committee meetings to address issues raised by Auditor General to track progress and evidence. We do not condone the late submission of AFS as we witnessed with Blouberg, Greater Giyani and Greater Tubatse municipalities. This cannot be right as it affects other processes that are time bound.
The Premier raised as a concern that year in and year out that the Auditor General draws the attention of municipalities to the same audit findings. We need change and improvement and moving forward we need the following to be a thing of the past.
The Auditor General has once again painted a gloomy picture emphasising challenges that will keep deferring the dream of achieving clean audits and they include the following:
- Key strategic positions vacant or filled by officials without appropriate competencies. A major challenge at 23 (79%) of the municipalities.
- Lack of consequences for poor performance and transgressions. A major challenge at 18 (62%) of the municipalities.
- Slow response by political leadership in addressing the root causes of poor audit outcomes. A major challenge at 21 (72%) of the municipalities.
The department continues to strive for the improvement of financial management and administration as well as improved financial accountability and stability in our municipalities. We should continue to monitor the financial performance of municipalities to help where there are challenges. This is a challenge that will take some time to address. There is still a low level of in-house financial skills.
It is pleasing to note that all municipalities have established Internal Audit Units and appointed Audit Committees. Audit Committees must report to council on a quarterly basis and the Auditor General has raised this non-compliance for many municipalities. Performance Audit Committee must be appointed although Audit Committees are utilised to perform this function. There is a need for municipalities to prioritise the appointment of Risk officers and the subsequent establishment of functional risk management committees.
Equally important in oversight is that the Provincial Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) has been established and the Provincial Executive MPAC committees elected. In collaboration with Provincial Treasury, Provincial Legislature and SALGA district-based training have been conducted successfully. In an effort to improve on the Provincial Oversight on Clean Audit, we wish to reiterate the establishment of the Provincial Steering Committee on Clean Audit which is jointly convened by the MEC for Provincial Treasury and MEC for CoGHSTA. We expect all the mayors to follow up on the implementation of the previous decisions adopted by this forum. There is a massive need to strengthen all oversight committees and fully support the important roles they play.
One of the biggest problems facing municipalities is their continued inability to spend their allocated Municipal Infrastructure Grants. We held a workshop in Tzaneen and invited strategic stakeholders to deal with all the things that impede the spending of the Grant as allocated. We expect municipalities to work with all the concerned parties as continued under spending reflect bad on all of us.
We emphasised at this MIG workshop compliance with the forward planning standard and the importance of sticking to set timelines. For municipalities to perform well, experience has proven that forward planning is very essential. With forward planning you are able to complete the necessary preparations well in advance. This will include if you plan ahead, sufficient time to assess project proposals, preparations by service providers, beneficiary management and assigning necessary financial resources.
Let me state some of the objectives of forward planning. We must plan ahead in order to ensure that allocated MIG is spend to alleviate backlogs and improve service delivery. It also means that planning is conducted in the preceding year for implementation to commence earnestly in the beginning of the approaching year.
Ladies and gentleman, all these things that we say we must do and must not do require competence and skills. The filling of senior management posts in our municipalities has been the biggest challenge. There are still municipalities that have vacant posts that are very critical more especially in the Finance division that result in the late compilation of monthly reconciliation statements. This trend has been impacting negatively on stability in management and service delivery. We therefore appeal as a matter of urgency that the mayors facilitate the filling of those posts with qualified and competent officials with requisite skills.
In conclusion, let us not forget that we have a mandate to ensure functional municipalities in the entire province. Municipalities are by their nature responsible for delivery of basic services such as water, sanitation, electricity and roads. Without proper functioning municipalities these services will not be accessed by the poor and the marginalised communities as intended, which may ultimately worsen poverty and underdevelopment.
I wish to appreciate the opportunity afforded to me to speak to you in this meeting. Together we must, among others ensure that there is sustainable provision of basic services, achieve good governance and credible leadership in all municipalities and the housing sector.
I therefore wish to call for your support and collective leadership to achieve this noble mandate.
I thank you.
