The Buffalo City Metro (BCM) council wants R132-million in irregular expenditure incurred in the first and second quarter of the current financial year investigated.
It was unanimously agreed by councillors that the municipal public accounts committee (Mpac) conduct the probe into the findings made by the Auditor-General (AG) on the metro’s finances this year.
Council took the resolution during a council meeting at the East London City Hall on Thursday last week.
The decision was taken on the same day Mpac, chaired by Sakhumzi Caga, tabled a report into irregular expenditure amounting to R450-million incurred in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 financial years.
This was a portion of R1.2-billion in irregular expenditure since 2011, of which the remaining amounts are also scheduled to be investigated.
In that report, the committee fingered suspended municipal manager Andile Fani, the accounting officer, for not taking action.
DA councillor Robbie Muzzell said the metro needed to act on recurring irregular expenditure.
“For the first and second quarter we have R132-million irregular expenditure. We are losing millions of rands,” Muzzell said.
BCM executive mayor Alfred Mtsi said irregular expenditure remained an audit query.
“We should not doubt our political will to address this. Its inefficiencies caused by the bureaucracy and supply chain (SCM) came up in a meeting we had with the AG.”
Councillors pointed out some officials were not declaring their interests and service providers could also be linked to state employees.
Mtsi said efforts to introduce an electronic procurement system were being made to address the problem but bureaucratic red tape was causing delays.
An electronic system would be introduced but it could not guarantee that there would not be problems.
“Even when feeding in information on the system it needs to be reliable. There’s a need of a change of mindset,” Mtsi said.
Caga said as long as disciplinary action was not taken against officials, irregular expenditure would not be resolved.
“From 2011 until now not a single person was called into a disciplinary hearing – why is this happening? Every financial year we are told the same thing by the AG. SCM is controlled by someone in terms of the Public Finance Management Act.”
ANC councillor Luleka Simon-Ndzele said there was a resolution taken by council, which was not rescinded, to overhaul SCM.
Simon-Ndzele said she supported the decision that Mpac should deal with challenges facing SCM because these impacted on the delivery of services to communities.
BCM wants R132m in irregular spending investigated
It was unanimously agreed by councillors that the municipal public accounts committee (Mpac) conduct the probe into the findings made by the Auditor-General (AG) on the metro’s finances this year.
Council took the resolution during a council meeting at the East London City Hall on Thursday last week.
The decision was taken on the same day Mpac, chaired by Sakhumzi Caga, tabled a report into irregular expenditure amounting to R450-million incurred in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 financial years.
This was a portion of R1.2-billion in irregular expenditure since 2011, of which the remaining amounts are also scheduled to be investigated.
In that report, the committee fingered suspended municipal manager Andile Fani, the accounting officer, for not taking action.
DA councillor Robbie Muzzell said the metro needed to act on recurring irregular expenditure.
“For the first and second quarter we have R132-million irregular expenditure. We are losing millions of rands,” Muzzell said.
BCM executive mayor Alfred Mtsi said irregular expenditure remained an audit query.
“We should not doubt our political will to address this. Its inefficiencies caused by the bureaucracy and supply chain (SCM) came up in a meeting we had with the AG.”
Councillors pointed out some officials were not declaring their interests and service providers could also be linked to state employees.
Mtsi said efforts to introduce an electronic procurement system were being made to address the problem but bureaucratic red tape was causing delays.
An electronic system would be introduced but it could not guarantee that there would not be problems.
“Even when feeding in information on the system it needs to be reliable. There’s a need of a change of mindset,” Mtsi said.
Caga said as long as disciplinary action was not taken against officials, irregular expenditure would not be resolved.
“From 2011 until now not a single person was called into a disciplinary hearing – why is this happening? Every financial year we are told the same thing by the AG. SCM is controlled by someone in terms of the Public Finance Management Act.”
ANC councillor Luleka Simon-Ndzele said there was a resolution taken by council, which was not rescinded, to overhaul SCM.
Simon-Ndzele said she supported the decision that Mpac should deal with challenges facing SCM because these impacted on the delivery of services to communities.
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