In a briefing of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) on Tuesday, Auditor-General (AG) representatives stated that the A-G would not be fully implementing its extended mandate which came into effect on the 1st of April 2019.
The Public Audit Amendment Act, which President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law in November 2018, was meant to give the A-G more teeth in order to hold, especially, wayward and delinquent municipalities to account.
The extended mandate given to the A-G includes the issuing of binding remedial action that must be taken by delinquent municipalities which, if not implemented, will result in the A-G issuing a certificate of debt for failure to implement against the relevant accounting officer i.e. the municipal manager in the case of municipalities.
The A-G report on the 2017/18 audit outcomes of municipalities is a horror story with only 18 out of 257 municipalities getting a “clean audit”. Despite this crisis in local government, it is worrying that the A-G seems to have no intention of using its new mandate robustly and in every instance of non-implementation of its recommendations.
The A-G stated that they want to “ease into the extended mandate”. This makes light of the law passed by Parliament and gives municipalities a get out of jail free card, possibly for years to come.
As such, the Democratic Alliance has written to the SCOPA committee chairperson, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, to ask that he request the A-G’s full plan of action for the implementation of the amendments to the Public Audit Act, in order to ensure that Parliament and the public have an opportunity to fully consider and scrutinise the A-G’s extended mandate.
In light of the dismal municipal audit outcomes this year, it is paramount that the A-G shows some teeth and hold delinquent and irresponsible municipalities to account.