34 out of 257 municipalities get clean audits

By Libuseng Nyaka

QWAQWA – Auditor General Tsakani Maluleke has lashed out at municipalities for using consultants for financial reporting.
Maluleke was addressing parliament’s portfolio committee on co-operative governance on Tuesday August 27, 2024.

“We found that 127 (58) of municipalities that used consultants for financial reporting had material misstatements in the areas in which the consultants did work.”
Maluluke’s report focused on messaging municipalities with audit opinions, with the worst audit outcomes urged to improve transparency and accountability in these municipalities.
She noted that the number of municipalities with clean audits have decreased.

“Only 34 of South Africa’s 257 Metropolitan, District and Local Municipalities received clean audit outcomes; while 45 municipalities have improved their audit outcomes since 2020-21 which was the last year of the previous administration’s term, 36 have regressed,” Maluleke said.

South Africa Auditor General Tsakani Maluleke.

She singled out the Free State and North West as provinces with the fewest clean audits.
“Free State and North West have a drought of clean audits and that has been number of years while the highest number of clean audits come from West Cape.”

Maluleke, released the 2022-23 consolidated general report on local government audit outcomes on Tuesday, and she expressed disappointment that no meaningful improvement occurred over the first two years of the current term.