Mkhize to release Parliament’s findings on Msunduzi’s failures

The chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Dr Zweli Mkhize, says Parliament will soon make public the findings of reports it requested from municipalities, including Msunduzi, following oversight visits earlier this year.

The reports focus on persistent service delivery challenges, including filth, water outages, and illegal structural extensions.

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He has also warned municipalities against relying on consultants to manage their finances, saying they must strengthen internal capacity to improve governance and accountability.

Addressing the media on Thursday in Parliament on the committee’s work, the latest municipal audit outcomes and National Treasury’s decision to withhold equitable share allocations from several municipalities, Mkhize said affected municipalities must urgently comply with Treasury’s conditions to have the funds released.

“The committee welcomes and appreciates the intent behind this decision,” he said, noting that equitable share allocations are essential for municipalities to deliver basic services.

He urged municipalities to address unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure, strengthen governance, and enforce consequences for financial misconduct.

Mkhize said Treasury’s intervention forms part of a broader accountability process involving Parliament, the Auditor-General, Treasury, Cogta, and provincial governments.

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Many of the affected municipalities had already appeared before parliamentary oversight committees, where recurring problems such as unfunded budgets, weak financial controls, procurement irregularities, poor revenue collection, high water and electricity losses, irregular expenditure, and a lack of accountability were identified.

During the committee’s January oversight visit to Msunduzi Municipality, Mkhize said the city’s deteriorating condition remained 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,” he said at the time.

On Thursday, he said the contents of the requested reports will be made public in due course.
While welcoming improvements in the 2024/25 municipal audit outcomes, Mkhize said significant challenges remained.

The number of municipalities receiving disclaimer audit opinions dropped from 29 in 2020/21 to eight, while 98% submitted their annual financial statements on time.

He said 72 municipalities had improved their audit outcomes since 2020/21.

However, 145 municipalities showed no improvement, only 39 achieved clean audits, and 38 regressed.

None of South Africa’s eight metropolitan municipalities received a clean audit, while the number with qualified audit opinions increased from two to five.

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Mkhize said poor governance directly affects residents through unreliable water and electricity supply, sewage spills, potholes, poor refuse collection, and delayed infrastructure projects.

He said the committee supported efforts to eliminate unfunded budgets, strengthen financial management, improve internal controls, and reduce municipalities’ dependence on consultants.

“The unambiguous and firm message is that these negative audit outcomes will not be tolerated,” he said.