Recurrent irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure in municipalities is no longer news.
It has become so embedded in the DNA of some of these institutions that the question becomes how much was spent and not whether it happened.
What has left many of us wondering is the way such malpractices are handled once they happen, which allows offenders to walk scot-free as is likely to happen in Buffalo City Metro soon.
Recently the BCM municipal manager recommended that more than R632m in irregular expenditure be written off because the council had failed to act in time to recover it from officials.
The deadline to recover such money was June 2024.
The spending in question occurred between the 2018/19 and 2020/21 financial years and relates to the lucrative “Contract 13B”, which involved the supply of construction machinery and equipment to the metro.
He also recommended that a further R66.5m in irregular spending from the 2012/13 and 2013/14 financial years — under a similar contract 13 — be written off, as the debts have prescribed.
The matter has been referred to MPAC for processing.
At law the municipal manager seems to make sense.
He warns that any attempt to recover the money now would be considered fruitless and wasteful as both civil and disciplinary actions were time-barred.
While that is true, it is the precedents which such actions set that is worrying.
The contract in question was declared invalid by the courts in October 2019 after complaints of procurement irregularities.
Despite this, city officials continued to use it until 2024.
Why did the accounting officers allow the court ruling to be defied for so many years?
Where was the council when all of this was happening?
Where was the council when all of this was happening?
The Municipal Finance Management Act empowers them to hold accountable officials, past and present, liable to pay back the money if they are found to be responsible for unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Why is this act so underutilised?
Is it a question of turning a blind eye while malpractices unfold or is it sheer incompetence?
Whatever it is, clearly this is a loophole which is being used not only at BCM but, dare we say, in other municipalities as well.
Cogta minister Velenkosini Hlabisa sounds very passionate about clean governance and dealing with dysfunctional municipalities.
It is our hope that he will plug this loophole by bringing in a law which will make it possible to pursue devious officials and councillors beyond such short time limits.
Anything to the contrary will allow delinquent officials and councillors to continue to do as they please.
People should be held accountable during and after their tenure of public office.
Daily Dispatch
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