Blue Crane Municipality admits financial regression and service delivery setbacks before Parliament

By Thapelo Molefe

The Blue Crane Route Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday admitted to serious financial and administrative setbacks during a presentation to Parliament’s joint oversight committees on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) and the Auditor-General.

The municipality, which had previously attained a seven-year run of unqualified audit opinions, told the joint committee that it had regressed to a qualified audit outcome in the latest financial year because of infrastructure valuation problems, poor revenue collection, and long-standing debt owed to Eskom.

Mayor Bonisile Manxoweni, leading the municipal delegation, acknowledged that the once-stable municipality had suffered a decline in both its financial health and service delivery capacity.

“We regressed from unqualified audit opinion to qualifications,” he said. “However, we have developed an action plan that is tabled at every council meeting to monitor progress in addressing the Auditor-General’s findings.”

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Nigel Delo said that