Ethekwini Municipality

An Auditor-General's report on eThekwini was filled with disquiet about the city's future and its prospects as a going concern.

“Management did not implement preventative controls in the environment to ensure a reduction in the incurrence of irregular expenditure,” according to the report. Kaunda said in the same statement that the municipality had achieved a “credible and balanced” budget and an AA+ investment grade credit rating with a stable outlook despite the current economic climate. “The understanding and application of preventative controls need to be entrenched in day-to-day activities by management through appropriate reviews, monitoring, corrective action and credible reporting by officials. Management should improve controls over demand management and planning to ensure that a competitive bidding process was followed, she said. For the PEP, a material irregularity notification was issued because payments went to individuals employed in other government departments. We are committed to moving towards performance, integrity, transparency, and accountability through more courageous, ethical, accountable, capable and citizen-centric leadership,” Mbhele said. “We accept there are still weaknesses in the system that need to be filled,” he said during the meeting. Irregular expenditure incurred for 2021-2022 was R1.5-billion, according to the report. A date for the vote would be announced in due course, Nyawose told the meeting. Similar non-compliance was also reported in the prior year.” The continuation of the current trend could be dire for the consumer and municipality with a likely increased tariff and consequently lower debtor recoverability rates. Last week, Active Citizens Coalition (ACC) president Imtiaz Syed wrote to Speaker Thabani Nyawose asking that a vote of no confidence in Kaunda be heard at the full council meeting.

The Auditor-General's office has given a scathing account of financial deterioration and lack of management in the eThekwini Municipality, ...

The Auditor-General report from July 1, 2022 to September 30, 2022 on the eThekwini Municipality revealed that the City only met 46% of its targeted ...

“Of particular concern to us is that 56.2% of water bought by the municipality is lost. The report found reasonable steps were not taken to ensure that the municipality implements and maintains effective systems of expenditure control. The biggest contributor to non-revenue water is ageing infrastructure. They have clearly failed to do this,” he said. The municipality also lost 56.2% of water it had bought. With the money spent on water lost, this could be used to replace pipes,” said Reddy.