Maile wants Gauteng municipalities to take action against financial non-compliance

JOHANNESBURG - The Gauteng government wants municipalities to take action against its financial officers for non-compliance after only two out of eleven received clean audits. 

The provincial government held a media briefing on Tuesday to present the municipal audit outcomes for the 2023 / 2024 financial year. 

While only two municipalities received clean audits, Gauteng said it's encouraged by the fact none of the municipalities regressed from the previous year. 

For the financial year under review, there were 19 instances of financial non-compliance by Gauteng municipalities.

A majority of them related to unauthorised, irregular and wasteful expenditure.

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Gauteng Finance and Economic Development MEC, Lebogang Maile, said municipalities need to strengthen their consequence management systems. 

"It's important to state in the previous financial years, disciplinary boars were established to deal with cases of financial misconduct. We reiterate the call we made in our previous communication of the 2022 / 2023 audit outcomes that the speakers of council, municipal public accounts and other council committees must instill a culture of good governance by promptly investigating instances of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure and by ensuring that disciplinary boards are functioning as intended."

Maile said an exact figure of irregular and wasteful expenditure by municipalities will be communicated in due time.