Auditor-General, Kimi Makwetu, says only 26% of the country’s municipalities took adequate steps on allegations of financial mismanagement and fraud.
Presenting the local government audit outcomes for 2017/18 financial year, Makwetu placed the blame on the leaders in local and provincial government.
He says the current governance lapses in municipalities could only be turned around if the leadership took matters in hand.
Makwetu announced that there are 18 municipalities with clean audits out of 257, saying this is a significant reversal from previous years.
He says more than half of municipalities failed to investigate the Audit office findings.
“When the tone at the top is not being set to deal with matters like this and affect the requisite consequences we may just as well close shop. Because if the leaders of the organisation do not do it, the auditors are not the enforcement authority to make them do it, but we have sufficient tools provided to them, what they didn’t have before to enable them to act as required by law,” says Makwetu.
