Serious irregularities found in Msunduzi Municipality's management

The Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) found several problems with projects in KwaZulu-Natal municipalities more especially the Msunduzi Municipality. 

The AGSA looked at 15 infrastructure projects in the eThekwini, Msunduzi, uMhlathuze, KwaDukuza, Okhahlamba and uMkhanyakude municipalities. The AGSA said there were five new projects and 10 projects where they did follow-ups on the prior year findings and continued auditing the project as part of its life cycle. 

Nomalungelo Mkhize, AGSA Business Unit Leader in KZN, presented the local government audit outcomes of the Municipal Financial Management Act (MFMA) to the KZN Legislature-Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) and the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) on Tuesday.

In the Msunduzi Municipality (MM), the AGSA found:

• MM did not earn revenue from landfill sites because the weighbridge digitiser at the municipal landfill site had been out of order for six months in 2019-20. Vehicles entering the site were not weighed and, therefore, there was no record of tonnage deposited.
• MM made salary payments from December 2016 to July 2019 to an employee who never reported for duty from their appointment date. The AGSA stated that the municipality received no services in return for the payments made.
• MM did not take reasonable measures at the New England landfill site to prevent pollution or degradation of the environment from occurring, continuing or recurring. The MM was non- compliant with the National Environmental Management Act
• MM failed to implement credit control and debt collection policy by not disconnecting or restricting services, nor arranging debt recovery with consumer debtors. This led to significant unpaid debts, resulting in the write-off of some consumer debtors as bad debts in the 2020-21 financial year. 

• In 2021-22, prepaid electricity consumers with prepaid meters did not purchase electricity, and management did not address this due to the lack of timely internal audits to identify tampered or bypassed meters. The AGSA stated that the non-compliance may have resulted in a financial loss for the MM
• MM awarded a contract for constructing the Copesville Reservoir in February 2020, set to finish in November 2021. Due to poor planning and project management, the project was delayed by 22 months, incurring extra costs without changing the scope of work. The AGSA stated that the project is still incomplete at 95%.
• the accounting officer paid scarce skills allowances to certain employees without evidence of eligibility or an approved policy. Despite a council resolution to stop these payments, they were reinstated in 2023/2024 without prior approval. The accounting officer has not facilitated recovery or approval processes for these allowances, nor approved the related policy.
• MM municipality failed to collect revenue that became due in December 2019 from a service provider for the disposal of timber in terms of the service level agreement.

 Anthony Waldhausen, chairperson of the Msunduzi Association of Residents,Ratepayers and Civics (MARRC) said they noted the AGSA report and they were aghast at the material irregularities at the revenue not billed at the landfill site.

Waldhausen said many residents complained about the situation at the landfill site and how they experienced delays to enter the landfill site. He said most left their refuse outside the landfill site out of frustration.

“It is the norm at the municipality where most of the municipal equipment and vehicles are never repaired and maintained. This shows that the municipality is completely dysfunctional. The other irregularities reported was that of salary paid to a manager that never reported for duty for five years. This is a dereliction of duty by the municipal manager to not address irregularity in time. This is gross negligence and poor consequence management against the manager,” Waldhausen said.

Waldhausen said every effort of intervention to improve the situation at the municipality is not working. 

“Municipal staff are unprofessional and unethical and this behaviour needs to urgently be addressed by the current acting municipal manager. They should recover the money for the past five years even if it means attaching the manager's pension. We as residents cannot continue to pay for poor service delivery and unethical municipal staff,” Waldhausen said. 

zainul.dawood@inl.co.za