Ramotshere Moiloa receives an improved audit outcome
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Media Statement
19 December 2022
Ramotshere Moiloa receives an improved audit outcome
After achieving a number of disclaimers in the previous years, the new Council had a vision of clean audit for the 2021-22 financial year (FY) when they came into office in 2021. When the Annual Financial Statements for the 2021-22 financial year were submitted to the Auditor General (AG) in August 2022, the Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipality Mayor; Dina Pitso indicated that she was optimistic that the municipality will receive an improved audit outcome. The wish has become a reality as communicated by the AG. In comparison to the prior years; whereby the Municipality achieved disclaimer opinions, the audit outcome for the 2021-22 FY has improved to a qualified opinion with a number of findings that need to be addressed.
The Municipality committed to fighting fiercely to get back to its track. In order to move from the disclaimer opinion, a governance and recovery plan was developed and implemented to address the material irregularities that were raised by the Auditor General during the previous audit. This was also enabled by the financial support received from the Provincial Treasury.
Upon receiving the report from the AG, the Mayor discovered that the municipality might have improved in terms of audit outcome but the AG has raised his concerns on the findings that are not fully addressed. Those finding amongst others include non-investigation of Unauthorised, Irregular, Fruitless and Wasteful expenditure; poor record keeping; lack of consequence management; poor performance management; and over reliance on consultants. “We cannot have a repetition of issues raised and not work on addressing them because we have employed people who should be able to do their work diligently. We have been shown where to clean so I would like to urge the accounting officer to enforce consequence management so that we can move to an unqualified opinion. According to the report by the AG it is very clear that the Municipality is capable of enhancing its performance and I commit to ensure that during this term, we clean up”, said Mayor Pitso when receiving the report.
The Mayor has also indicated that the positions of the Municipal Manager and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) are vacant but that should not halt the process of dealing with issues raised by the AG since there are officials acting on those positions. “Currently we have vacant positions of the Municipal Manager and the CFO which have been advertised and will be filled soon. We are hopeful that those who are acting on those positions and those who will be appointed will pull up their socks and carry the baton forward. I would also like to thank the former Municipal Manager; France Temeki Mabokela, former CFO, Mme Morufa Moloto and the entire management for their commitment, dedication and the will to thrive which have impacted the audit outcome”, she concluded.
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Communication Unit
Dirontsho Sebego
Communication Manager 018 642 1081 ext 286 / 0833208627
