Leadership, as a human quality, is often subjected to close scrutiny by many a scholar, the synthesis of which crystalizes in 5 simple characteristics: accountability, integrity, honesty, selflessness and ethical behaviour.
Now here one simply intends to de-sensationalise the R900m in Unauthorised, Irregular, Fruitless and wasteful (UIFW) expenditure as purported to have been incurred by Metsimaholo LM, doing so without masking any difficulty nor attempting to defend any entity/personality within the institution; over and above to dispel the myth that the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) simply carries itself just to tick a box.
Perhaps it would assist in defining UIFW, these expenditures, although avoidable, carry a negative PUBLIC connotation to them which political parties blurt out without context.
UIFW inter alia means:
Unauthorised expenditure means (a) overspending of the total amount appropriated in the municipality’s approved budget; (b) overspending of the total amount appropriated for a vote in the approved budget; (c) expenditure from a vote unrelated to the department or functional area covered by the vote; (d) expenditure of money appropriated for a specific purpose, otherwise than for that specific purpose… Simply put, augmenting a budget allocation from another mainly due to poor planning, e.g. moving monies allocated for catering services to purchase a transformer.
Irregular expenditure means (a) expenditure incurred by a municipality or municipal entity in contravention of, or that is not in accordance with, a requirement of the MFMA Act 56 of 2003; (b) expenditure incurred by a municipality or municipal entity in contravention of, or that is not in accordance with, a requirement of the supply chain management policy of the municipality or entity or any of the municipality’s by-laws giving effect to such policy…Here the implementation being having not followed prescribed channels of procurement, e.g. procuring emergency materials in the occurrence of an electrical outage or the extension of service provider contracts where work is incomplete and service is still needed.
Wasteful and fruitless expenditure means expenditure that was made in vain and would have been avoided had reasonable care been exercised… e.g. interests incurred on creditors or booking courses for persons who don’t attend such courses.
Above is a simplified explanation of what MPAC needs to be investigating, monitoring and recommending any course of action in an eventuality of said expenditures. Without a shadow of doubt, I can confirm that indeed MPAC has, in recent months, been playing its role as mandated by Council. It is quite important to note that these transactions do not always amount to corruption as is perceived in the public domain, rather a reflection of poor contingency foresight; not withstanding that that as regulated as these expenditures may be, one does find instances of negligence and mischievous transactions, which to this date, as I will show, MPAC has/is proactively playing an oversight against.
Section 32(2) of the MFMA empowers municipalities to:
recover unauthorised, irregular or fruitless and wasteful expenditure from the person liable for that expenditure unless the expenditure-
(a) in the case of unauthorised expenditure, is-
(i) authorised in an adjustments budget; or
(ii) certified by the municipal council, after investigation by a council
(b) in the case of irregular or fruitless and wasteful expenditure is, after investigation by a council committee, certified by the council as irrecoverable and written off by the Council.
From its inception. MPAC has not been truly functional as is provided by legislation, this is a weakness Council had on many occasions conceded to.
This I would venture to attribute to subjective and objective factors. The 1st being a lack of political will. This is subjective as one is not privy to the inner workings of MPAC and Council, but it is quite evident that historical instances of UIFW were not attended to in the past, something I might wish to, as carefully as possible, attribute to a Council that was dominated by a single political party wherein the MPAC chairperson was elected from.
A more concreate based reason for the lack of performance by MPAC has to be the disastrous and unstable administrative arm of the institution has been. This, in the main, has lead MPAC to not have the necessary support to carryout its mandate. In the advent of political and administrative stability, where we saw senior managers being appointed, Council resolved to reconfigure the organogram in order to capacitate MPAC administratively.
Taking note of the above, eintlik what has MPAC been busy with. February 28, 2025, a historic moment where MPAC presents to Council irregular expenditure amounting to R 133 323 419.51 for the years of 2019/20 and 2022/23. Admittedly, the form and shape of the report was not satisfactory before Council, but Council resolves to note the contents of the report and proceeds to write off the amount. This writing off, as you will see with other reports, was done under the wisdom of dealing with historical/legacy transactions where recovery and/or consequence management was viewed through the lens of a historically unstable institution, where the cost of perusing recovery may lead to more expenses. Rather, focus is based on recommendations/resolutions that foster a culture of compliance, monitoring performance and general oversight by Council in prevention of instances of UIFW. Colloquially speaking, thupa e ka metsing.
Over and above the reports of the 28th February, an investigation into an irregular appointment of a security service provider was conducted and a report tabled before Council, the report details a recovery process that is before the courts. Irregular expenditure for 2021/22 too was written off with the exception of about R 2 898 172.49 that is subjected to further investigation.
Investigations into 2023/24 irregular expenditure have been concluded, report of which is arguably the most detailed in relation to the process mentioned above related to monitoring, herein MPAC draws the line. It is as yet to be tabled before Council as challenges arose in relation to misstatements (designating transactions as irregular where such transactions don’t meet the threshold or failure to properly identify and report such transactions) from finance office. Beyond irregular expenditure, MPAC has investigated unauthorised expenditure and likewise report thereof due for tabling before Council.
A total of R 305 908 670.41irregular expenditure has been processed by the Committee (historic/legacy), R230m of which has been written off in terms of the provisions of the section 32 of the MFMA. Detailed reports thereto do exist and have been resolved upon by Council. This is where we differ (and will argue this) with the Auditor General. The notion that investigations conducted don’t have supplementary documentation is an oversight on AG side to have not considered Council resolutions. Funny enough, the audited financial reports ONLY speaks to and acknowledges the report of 2022/23, one of 2 initial reports that Council adopted with “reservations” sighting the aesthetics of said report; baffling.
Fruitless and wasteful expenditure is yet to be delved into, the focus was mainly on historic irregular expenditure thus far in order to deal with the huge backlogs.
R900m talks to accumulated/historic/legacy irregular expenditure, it is important to put this into context as the municipal budget is but only about R1.9b. The impression created in the public domain is that Metsimaholo LM has spent over half of its budget irregularly, this is not true, the financial statements actually speak to R89m in the year under review. This R89m is indeed inexcusable and prompts one to reflect on an institution’s capacity to plan ahead as well as noncompliance with procurement best practices, investigations will commence to determine negligence and feasibility of recovering some, if not most, of the monies in line with legislation.
The picture painted above is clearly not a pretty one, but in the same breath one can not as yet see the fruits of the functionality of MPAC as irregular expenditure fluctuates from year to year, no clear downward trend for the last 3 financial years, the mandate of the Committee is to investigate instances, but the committee has stretched its mandate to recommend measures that seek to curb such occurrence, e.g. contract management, panel appointments, etc.
All of the above merely seeks to dispel myths, but moreover to give guidance or rather civic education on the role MPAC plays and continues to exert oversight as mandated by relevant legislation and Council.
It is disingenuous to proclaim that MPAC, as a Committee appointed in early 2022 has not been performing its duties; they have investigated irregular expenditures for 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24…these are years mostly under their immediate mandate and have gone a bit backwards to do 2019/20 as well. What has led to an accumulated/historic/legacy R900m, among reasons stated above, is failures of previous Councils to enforce MPAC to carry out its duties.
Now that we’ve dealt with the functionality of MPAC, and dispelled the antithesis, what would make sense to me are calls for MPAC to accelerate its enforcement of recovery of monies and/or consequence management responsibility. That I can assure the Committee is working towards.
As a 3rd generation resident of Metsimaholo, i.e. Sasolburg/Zamdela, and functionary of the municipality, the state of crimpling infrastructure, investment deprived and dilapidated CBD among a plethora of issues is indeed concerning, concerns exacerbated by seeing positive contributions and the immense work put in by many an official in the institution; yet one is optimistic that the tide seems to be turning towards fully attaining Section 152 of the constitution, accredited to the stability enjoyed over the past 2-3 years.
It is important for Councillors and perpetuators of the myth that MPAC has been sitting on its laurels to understand the path that has been traversed in its entirety, and quiet down on sensational headlines and half-truths (in election year).
MPAC in Metsimaholo may only have been growing its teeth, which are now chiselled and sharp enough to bite, question that will be left to answer is: has the Committee espoused characteristics of leadership.
In the final analysis, ikomanisi alisoze lathengisa ngabantu.
Themba Zondo – Metsimaholo LM MPAC Researcher, YCLSA Josie Mpama District Convenor and full-time revolutionary writing in his personal capacity.
