The North West Provincial Legislature’s Standing Committee on Provincial Public Accounts (SCOPA) held a meeting with stakeholders to strategise on oversight, accountability and to strategise on action to be taken against those who misused taxpayers’ monies.
The meeting attended by Municipal Public Accounts Committees (MPACs), Auditor General’s office (AG), a representative from the Crime Intelligence (Hawks), the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), and the Department of Local Government resolved to work very close with the office of the Public Protector and the Hawks.
SCOPA Chairperson, Hon. Hlomane Chauke said the meeting came as a Committee’s intervention after the provincial Auditor-General’s (AG) office painted a worrying picture on the performance of the North West municipalities in the Audit Outcomes of the 2010/11 financial year, during a presentation that was done before the Committee.
“The AG’s office informed the Committee that lack of political leadership and capacity within our municipalities leads to disappointing audit outcomes.
“The office also discovered that municipalities pay high costs to employ private companies to do work of municipal officials,” said Hon. Chauke. He said the companies often cannot perform basic work such as compiling financial statements and bank reconciliations.
“This is why we are looking for external partners, such as the Hawks and office of the Public Protector to investigate corruption.
“MPACs must be utilised playing key oversight role in municipal finances,” said Hon. Hlomane Chauke.
Programme Manger on governance at South African Local Government Association Mr. Knox Mlathi said MPACs are a good tool to improve governance in municipalities.
“MPACs are developed according to needs of each municipalities to ensure effective oversight which will instil confidence on residents,” said Mr. Mlathi.
Business Executive at Auditor General’s North West office, Mr. Liaquath Ally said Section 79 of the Municipal Finance Management Act stipulates correct guidelines for the establishment of MPACs.
“Previous year’s audit reports recommended that companies employed at municipalities are advised to transfer skills to staff to ensure stability and consistency.
“Municipalities must move away from the culture of waiting for audit reports to find problems on their finances but rather create processes of continuous self-assessment through internal audit units,” said Mr. Liaquath.
SCOPA Chairperson, Hon. Hlomane Chauke recommended that chairpersons of MPACS must ensure that they have minimum capacity such as researchers, legal advisers and administrators for effective governance.
“We will also look at strengthening mechanisms to track implementation of MPACs. “We will regularise engagement of MPACs and SCOPA for feedback and way forward,” said Hon. Hlomane Chauke.
Enquiries:
Namhla Luhabe
Cell: 079 527 0628
E-mail: namhla@nwpl.org.za
SCOPA and stakeholders resolves to work closely with public
protector and hawks
Province
