The Congress of South African Trade Unions in Free State calls on the Auditor General to methodically implement the provisions of the Audit Act in response to the local government audit outcomes.

We are not surprised by the fact that none of the municipalities in the province have achieved a clean audit outcome. We are only shocked to see that the same audit report indicates that there are matching skills and qualifications in terms of the CFO’s and Municipal Managers currently in the employ of municipalities.

This is unacceptable, especially considering the exorbitant salaries and perks enjoyed by these managers. Their failure to meet their minimum performance requirements of attaining a clean audit outcome is scandalous.

Achieving a clean audit outcome is not an above-average performance but rather a minimum performance requirement for a senior manager employed to manage the state funds in any state institution.

These managers should be held accountable and the AG’s office should step in to recover all lost monies in line with the Public Audit Act 25 of 2004 as amended.

Communities in the province are deprived of basic services due to this mismanagement of resources. We cannot continue to have fruitless and irregular expenditure, whilst our members continue to receive their salaries late and the suppliers continue to go unpaid.

Workers are losing their lives because they cannot access proper health care as their medical aid benefits have been suspended due to failure to pay by municipalities.

We cannot continue to have members living in poverty after retirement because municipalities are holding back contributions and not paying retirement funds administrators!

We call on the office of the Auditor General Free State to methodically follow the Public Audit Act to the latter in terms of all the municipalities, where there are negative findings. The accounting officers must be issued with debt certificates and we demand full accountability.

Issued by COSATU Free State

Enquiries Provincial Secretary Monyatso oa Mahlatsi @ 051 447 5499 or 076 115 9923