An investigation into official records reveals how years of audit disclaimers, procurement failures and weak financial controls left Makana Local Municipality with nearly R1 billion in unauthorised, irregular and fruitless expenditure.
For nearly a decade, Makhanda has lived through a peculiar kind of collapse. Taps run dry for days at a time. Roads crumble faster than they can be patched. Raw sewage spills into residential streets. And behind the scenes, in council chambers and finance offices, the municipality has been bleeding public money through procurement failures and financial controls so broken that auditors cannot say with confidence where much of it went.
Official records reviewed by The Baseline show Makana Local Municipality has accumulated almost R939 million in unauthorised, irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure, while receiving seven consecutive disclaimer audit opinions from the Auditor-General of South Africa, the most severe outcome a public institution can receive…. read more HERE
