Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) has given several municipalities three months to submit reports detailing how they intend to address issues raised by the Auditor-General in the 2023/24 financial year. The directive follows the conclusion of a five-day joint oversight visit to the province by the Cogta committee and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), which focused on the Auditor-General’s findings and the steps taken by municipalities to resolve identified shortcomings. Cogta committee chairperson Dr Zweli Mkhize said the oversight team found that while some municipalities had begun responding to the Auditor-General’s concerns, serious problems remained.
Nineteen KZN municipalities, including Msunduzi, were summoned to appear before the committee. “Our main focus was on irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. We wanted to establish whether municipalities have proper structures in place to deal with these issues and, where necessary, whether investigations have been conducted,” said Mkhize.
Municipalities have been given three months to submit detailed reports outlining how they are addressing these matters. We also found that some municipalities are sitting with significant debt, which must be fully explained. Mkhize said the committees also flagged critical service delivery failures, including sewage spillages and water supply shortages in several municipalities.
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Turning to Msunduzi, he said the City’s deteriorating state was a major concern. “Filth, the mushrooming of informal structures, illegal building extensions, and the disregard of by-laws are burning issues. “We want a comprehensive report on these and other matters tabled before Parliament,” Mkhize said.
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