Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Sesotho soundbites by Cllr Thulani Mbana and Afrikaans soundbite by Cllr Louis Van Heerden.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will submit follow-up questions and written motions in Council to ensure accountability after deeply concerning findings from the Office of the Auditor-General were presented, highlighting ongoing financial mismanagement that directly undermines service delivery and places an increasing burden on the community.
This report paints a disturbing picture for the municipality. During the 2024/2025 financial year, the municipality spent only R13.5 million on consultants to fix the assets register and the Annual Financial Statements, which remain faulty in the current financial year.
During the 2024/2025 financial year alone, the municipality incurred about R50 million in irregular expenditure. In this financial year, the municipality continued to overpay for contracts—the compounded amount to date in wasteful, fruitless and irregular expenditure totals over R900 million.
The Municipal Public Account Committee, which was entrusted with investigating these actions, continues to do so but was quick to recommend the write-off of R96 million without any investigation. The AG’s office was not provided with any report from MPAC, which shows a lack of transparency.
The municipality continues to allocate more of its finances to operational expenditure than to capital investment, which would boost revenue collection. At least 20% of the total budget should be allocated to capital assets, yet the municipality is doing the opposite. In this financial year, only 2% of the budget is allocated to maintenance, which contributes to ongoing service delivery issues.
According to this report, the municipality continues to experience water and electricity distribution losses due to municipal bridges and illegal connections.
The Democratic Alliance continues to fulfil its oversight role by holding the executive and officials accountable.