Plans to move the Chris Hani District municipality out of the negative audit outcome were welcomed today by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) delegation to the Eastern Cape.
“We are pleased about the honesty of the district in tabling its challenges and are equally pleased that they have put in place plans to resolve these. The political and administration interface is also encouraging. It’s a good thing to see politicians and administrators pulling in the same direction for the betterment of their municipalities,” said Ms Zukiswa Rantho, leader of the NCOP delegation to the Eastern Cape.
According to Executive Mayor, Mr Mxolisi Koyo, the district has started to meet the deadline for the submission of financial statements. “With regard to procurement policies and its management, we have ensured that we get the relevant officials to champion this section and by so doing, we have seen things improving,” he said.
The district has also taken the advice from the Auditor General (AG) in dealing with loopholes emanating from the provision of water services contract. “The AG highlighted this contract as one of the major contributing factors in us getting disclaimer. In July 2011, we started with the implementation of the improved contract and we are already witnessing some improvement” said Mr Koyo.
The district has started strengthening its internal audit controls. It also came up with a plan of putting local municipalities in clusters in a bid to meet the challenge of lack of resources. “The lack of resources has necessitated us to have one audit committee per three municipalities,” he said. Bid adjudication committees have also been strengthened in order to ensure compliance and do away with awarding of tenders to friends and families.
The delegation will tomorrow, 20 April 2012, have a debriefing meeting with the Eastern Cape Executive and Members of the Provincial Legislature in a meeting to be held in Bisho at the Eastern Cape Legislature. During this meeting, the NCOP delegation will share its findings on the state of readiness of the municipalities they visited. The delegation will also, jointly with the Eastern Cape government, map the way forward.
For further inquiries or interviews with the leader of the delegation, please contact:
Temba Gubula (Mr)
Parliamentary Communication Services (PCS)
Tel: 021 403 8307
Fax: 021 403 3931
Cell: 078 735 8809
E-mail: tgubula@parliament.gov.za
