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
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