Little progress in municipal fiscus performance, says AG Maluleke

THE financial year 2020/21 saw little improvement in the performance of the country’s local government sphere, says Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke.

The year saw only 41 of the 257 municipalities receive clean audits. Maluleke on Wednesday presented the consolidated general report on local government audit outcomes for the financial year.

Addressing reporters, the AG decried the lack of improvement in the status of transparency, accountability, performance and integrity of local government.

She said: “Throughout the tenure of the fourth administration of local government, we’ve not seen an improvement. If you compare from five years ago, there were 33 clean audits. This time, it’s around 41 — so not much movement in the right direction.”

The AG said it was important to note that among the 41 were predominantly district municipalities, one metro, very few local municipalities, a handful of municipal entities, and small number of intermediate cities.

Municipalities and entities