Refilwe Mochoari
The Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality is entangled in a scandal with the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) this week that revealed damning evidence of financial mismanagement while the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) uncovered corruption allegations within the metro police and the Integrated Public Transport Network (IPTN), dating back to 2017.
What was once touted as a “rescue plan” has now spiraled into criminal probes, exposing the torrid situation probing further scrutiny over persistent service delivery failures, and exhibiting a city on the brink of collapse.
On Tuesday 5 May, Mayor Gregory Nthatisi, City Manager Sello Moroe, and Chief Financial Officer Zuziwe Thekisho appeared before Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) to defend the municipality from the findings of the AG and the SIU investigations.
The municipality is under fire for spending 113% of its budget while only 50% of its service delivery targets were met.
Mangaung has been under provincial intervention since January 2020 and was escalated to national intervention in April 2022. A financial recovery plan (FRP) was approved in September 2023 to stabilize finances and restore governance.
According to AGSA, the municipality spent R1.3 billion on unauthorized expenditure, R324 million on irregular expenditures, R67 million on fruitless and wasteful expenditure, R192 million on underspending on conditional grants, and as a result the National Treasury withheld R140 million in funding due to slow project implementation which impacted infrastructure projects.
The report states that only 26% of a water project valued at over R106 million is complete.
It also states that Mangaung owes R642 million for bulk water, while losing nearly half of its water supply through leaks, burst pipes, and illegal connections amounting to R495 million.
This is a bleak picture of what the municipality’s financial management and performance looks like.
The AG says it could not verify critical information such as water revenue, overtime payments, and whether some goods and services paid for were delivered.
Based on the hearings that were raised, SCOPA raised concerns regarding the mismanagement of finances and poor service delivery at Mangaung.
However in his presentation before SCOPA, Nthatisi said the period under review by the AG, accounts for 2021/22, 2022/23, and mainly 2023/24.
“Now without any excuse, we came into the municipality, effectively from October 2023 when budgets and all processes were run
SCOPA Committee Chairperson Songezo Zibi says the AG findings and SIU ongoing investigations at Mangaung show what can happen in just a short period of five years in a municipality.
“There is a level of financial recklessness that we often see in local government that we do not often see elsewhere.
“Politicians in local government cannot make the right call on how to spend money correctly.
“What we see in these municipalities is that the officials make poor financial decisions, and this is often the result of political incompetence.
“We find that mostly the decisions are not malicious, but they are just terrible decision-making from politicians, said Zibi.
Zibi also says however the current problems in Mangaung largely emanate from the previous administration.
“I am not saying that the current leadership is innocent, but if we have to be honest, the current leadership has only been there for three years most of these crimes were committed way before they took office at the municipality,” he said.
