Staff Reporter
The final joint oversight visit this week by the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and the Standing Committee on the Auditor-General has laid bare deep-seated governance failures in the Free State.
Their findings include billions owed to creditors, non-payment of pension contributions deducted from employees’ salaries, excessive and often unauthorised overtime payments, irregular tenders, and more than R7 billion in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure in some municipalities.
In many areas, service delivery has collapsed entirely.
Tuesday’s oversight of the Setsoto, Dihlabeng, Nketoana, and Phumelela local municipalities concluded an intensive process covering all 23 municipalities in the Free State province.
The Free State leg is the first phase of a planned countrywide parliamentary initiative to address poor municipal audit outcomes.
Committee chairperson Dr Zweli Mkhize described the delegation’s findings as “symptomatic of a culture of impunity” and warned that, without urgent intervention, some municipalities could remain financially unsustainable for up to a decade.
“Grant-dependent municipalities unable to generate their own revenue must receive targeted support, but this must go hand-in-hand with strict accountability and consequences for wrongdoing,” Mkhize said.
He added that the provincial government would be held accountable for implementing measures to address adverse audit outcomes, improve capacity, and ensure municipal councils and mayors take full responsibility for governance failures.
The committee has given the province three months to report on progress, with immediate updates expected on urgent matters — including instances where municipal officials misled the committee during engagements.
Mkhize stressed that restoring functionality in the Free State’s municipalities would require both capacity-building and the strict enforcement of accountability.
“We cannot allow late submissions, poor-quality financial statements, and governance negligence to persist. The provincial leadership must act decisively, and we will monitor every commitment to ensure the people of the Free State see real, lasting change,” said Mkhize.
Odwa Duda, a representative from the Office of the Auditor-General, echoed the call for consequence management, the eradication of unfunded budgets, and tighter scrutiny of financial and performance reports by mayors.
He also emphasised the role of municipal Public Accounts Committees and internal audit structures in preventing irregular expenditure and sustaining improvements in financial governance.
Without these measures, Duda warned, the province risks repeating its cycle of poor audit outcomes.
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