President Cyril Ramaphosa says it is worrying that only 38 out of 257 municipalities achieved clean audits.

He dedicated his weekly newsletter to the issue following the Auditor General Tsakani Maluleke’s consolidated audit report for municipalities for 2021-22, which was issued last week.

The report shows that of the eight metros, only Cape Town and Ekurhuleni received clean audits.

”It is worrying that only 38 out of 257 municipalities – and only two out of the eight metros – achieved clean audits. While clean audits are not the only indicator of good service delivery, there is a clear correlation between achieving good audit outcomes and improving services to communities.”

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Ramaphosa says measures to improve the lives of South Africans will only truly become effective when the challenges in local government are addressed.

“Local government provides the infrastructure and services that help improve people’s livelihoods. All spheres of government must therefore work together to ensure that municipalities are able to fulfil their responsibilities.

“The people of South Africa expect and are entitled to local governments that are there to serve them and uphold their right to dignity. All spheres of government are committed to play their part to make this a reality.”

It is imperative that municipalities must have credible, sustainable and well-managed revenue collection programmes that apply fair and equitable standards to all customers. Citizens should play their part by paying for services. All businesses and government departments must pay… pic.twitter.com/XkoMQYoXYv

— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) June 5, 2023

Last Friday, Ramaphosa met with the nine Premiers of the country, at the President’s Coordinating Council (PCC), and the issue of local government and service delivery was top of the agenda.

The President says the Council focused on the challenge of municipal underspending.

Ramaphosa says while many municipalities are in great financial difficulty, they often do not spend the grants they are allocated by the national government.

In the last year, around 88 municipalities failed to spend at least 10% of their Municipal Infrastructure Grant, which is supposed to be used for eradicating infrastructure backlogs.

”Another challenge is that money that is not allocated for a specific purpose is often misspent.

A number of municipalities state that they do not have sufficient funds to implement programmes and projects. This is often the case because they are not able to collect revenue for key services like water and electricity.”

Ramaphosa says the PCC has recommended that National Treasury and the Department of Cooperative Governance should develop measures to further support and strengthen municipal revenue collection systems.