Premier Mabuza summons municipal managers with disclaimers to a special meeting

Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza hands over an award from Business Executive in the Office of the Auditor-General Sibongile Lubambo [far right] to Finance MEC Madala Masuku for receiving a clean audit while Finance HOD Dede Nkamba [far left] looks on.

Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza congratulates MEC Pinky Phosa who received an award for clean audit on behalf of the Mpumalanga Gambling Board while the Mpumalanga Business Executive in the Office of the Auditor-General Ms Sibongile Lubambo looks on

Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza and leaders of the municipalities, goverment department and parastatal that received clean audits pose for a group photo with Mpumalanga Business Executive in the Office of the Auditor-General Ms Sibongile Lubambo [second from right in the front row]

Premier Mabuza summons municipal managers with disclaimers to a special meeting

By Brian Kajengo

Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza summoned all municipal managers and mayors of five municipalities to a special meeting where they will explain why their services not be terminated after they received the disclaimers from the Auditor-General.

He was speaking at a Premier’s Co-ordination Forum in Nelspruit on Tuesday 04 February 2014 which lasted for 12 hours.

Premier Mabuza called for a special meeting with the municipal managers and mayors of Emalahleni, Msukaligwa, Bushbuckridge, Thaba Chweu and Mkhondo.

This was shortly after the Mpumalanga Business Executive in the Office of the Auditor-General Ms Sibongile Lubambo gave the status and progress of the audit outcomes of Mpumalanga province local government.

Fuming Premier David Mabuza told both the municipal managers and mayors of these municipalities that they were at “cross roads” and had “reached the end” with him while reminding them of their voluntary written commitments last year where they agreed that if they get the disclaimers from the audit outcomes, they should released from duty.

Bushbuckridge and Thaba Tshweu are still under Administrators.

Ms Lubambo had explained that it was only Steve Tshwete and Ehlanzeni municipalities which received the clean audits with no findings in their 2012/2013 audit outcomes.

She said Lekwa, Nkomazi, Chief Albert Luthuli, Dr J S Moroka, Emakhazeni, Govan Mbeki, Pixley Ka Isaka Seme, Thembisile Hani, Dipaliseng, Victor Khanye and Umjindi municipalities sat on qualified reports with findings.

Dipaliseng and Victor Khanye municipalities regressed from clean audits, unqualified to qualified audit reports whilst Nkomazi and Lekwa improved from receiving disclaimers to qualified audit reports.

Although Mbombela local municipality, Gert Sibande and Nkangala district municipalities received unqualified reports with findings, they will still join the other four municipalities at a special meeting on Tuesday to explain their cases since they had regressed as a result of leadership problems.

Whilst the focus was on the municipalities, Ms Lubambo also revealed that the provincial Department of Finance, Office of the Premier and the Mpumalanga Gambling Board also received the clean audits with no findings.

Ms Lubambo cited amongst others lack of consequences for poor

performance and transgressions, and slow response by political leadership in addressing the root causes of poor audit outcomes as challenges which were greatly contributing to the problems faced by poor performing municipalities.

She further cited the slow response by management in addressing the root causes of poor audit outcomes and instabilities or filling in of key vacancies in key positions within the municipalities.

An angry Mabuza said it was time an action taken against the poor performing leaders of the municipalities as recommended by the Auditor-General.

“It is one thing to come here and harper on one and the same thing, waste government money on food and water while there are no results, they [municipal leaders] will have to bring their mitigating factors because it cannot be life as usual,” said Mabuza.

The Premier subsequently asked the leaders of the four municipalities to go “home and prepare” their presentations for the Tuesday special meeting.

“The fact of the matter is that the situation in very horrible. All the support from various government institutions in assisting the municipalities collectively came to zero. Come Tuesday, we are going to act on the basis of the findings. We have come to a point that we must act.

“I don’t think we are going to be lenient on those who got the disclaimers, there is no reason to keep these folks, they must go, otherwise we will be seen as useless, where people would do as they wish. Even the administrators of the municipalities must tell us why they received the disclaimers because we are paying them a lot of money,” said Mabuza.

The meeting expressed satisfaction on the progress made regarding the bulk water supply in the province by Rand Water and MEGA. Although there was still a need to accelerate the intervention at Msukaligwa and Emalahleni municipalities, a substantial progress noted in the Bushbuckridge Municipality.

More than a week ago, both the Premier and the Water Affairs Minister Edna Molewa intervened at Lekwa Municipality after it experienced serious water challenges and the teams are already on the ground. The meeting also noted progress by MEGA in the supply of bulk water and that the projects were up and running.

It does anticipate that communities will soon be getting water around the end of the financial year.