The City of Joburg faces mounting scrutiny over its lack of progress in improving audit processes, coupled with severe financial challenges and a concerning rise in irregular expenditure. The Auditor-General's office and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) have highlighted key issues, including revenue collection struggles, inadequate infrastructure investment, and procurement irregularities.
The Auditor-General's office has expressed serious concerns about the City of Joburg's persistent struggles to improve its audit processes, highlighting a concerning stagnation in progress.
During an eight-hour meeting with Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Dumisani Cebekhulu, business unit leader for the Auditor-General's office in Gauteng, revealed that despite periods of positive improvement, the City of Joburg has been stuck in a rut, failing to demonstrate significant advancements in its audit outcomes. Cebekhulu pointed to several key challenges facing the city, including long-standing issues with debt collection, revenue management, and compliance. He emphasized the city's insufficient investment in infrastructure, stating that a lack of funding for both maintenance and new projects has hampered service delivery. Cebekhulu also stressed the need for the city to strengthen its internal control processes and re-evaluate its service delivery model to enhance operational effectiveness.The Auditor-General's office identified only two entities within the City of Joburg, Joburg Market and Joburg Theatre, as achieving clean audit outcomes for the 2022/2023 financial year. Other key entities, such as Joburg Water, City Power, Pikitup, and the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), received unqualified audit opinions, indicating the presence of findings. Cebekhulu highlighted the significant impact of poor debt collection on revenue-generating entities like Joburg Water, negatively affecting the city's overall financial health. He further raised concerns about irregular expenditure, which escalated from R8.8 billion in 2019/2020 to R11.1 billion in 2022/2023. Adding to the city's woes, no funds lost due to irregular expenditure have been recovered or condoned.The Special Investigating Unit (SIU), led by Gauteng head Sagren Reddy, provided insights into its investigations into various procurement processes within the City of Joburg. The SIU's investigation encompassed procurement of vehicles and maintenance services, fire station repairs, installation of CCTV equipment, and the purchase of uniforms for the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD). While irregularities were uncovered in a R9.1 million contract awarded to Fire Raiders for the procurement of 29 fire engines, the SIU found no irregularities in a R3 million contract for maintenance at the Midrand Fire Station. However, concerning duplicate payments amounting to nearly R600 000 were discovered in a R10.6 million CCTV installation project for the City of Joburg's emergency management services (EMS) and JMPD, requiring recovery. Despite no confirmed corruption allegations, the SIU meticulously tracked the flow of funds during the procurement process
CITY OF JOBURG AUDIT FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE IRREGULAR EXPENDITURE SERVICE DELIVERY SPECIAL INVESTIGATING UNIT AUDITOR-GENERAL
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