Mpumalanga’s Steve Tshwete Local Municipality (STLM) is celebrating another year of clean governance. The municipality boasted that it had a 20-year history of good governance, after receiving another clean audit report for the 2019/2020 financial year.
Steve Tshwete, one of only 27 of the country’s 257 municipalities to receive clean audits, said it was also proud to be the best performing municipality in the implementation of the Local Economic Development (LED).
The audit focusing on four areas, the Annual Financial Statements, Audit of Performance Objectives, Compliance, and Internal Controls, was conducted based on international auditing standards for the year under review.
Steve Tshwete Local Municipality Municipal manager Bheki Khenisa, said the municipality was pleased with the findings.
“Once again we are proud to have maintained our reputation as one of the best performing municipalities in the country. The municipality has an excellent service delivery to our ratepayers who are pivotal in the municipality’s financial buoyancy with a payment rate of over 95 percent,
"The enviable payment rate enables the municipality to render the highest quality of continued service delivery to our communities including free basic services to more than 17 000 indigent households,” he said.
Khenisa added that having proper internal controls including stringent financial management, and insistence on strict performance management were some of the measures the municipality had constantly maintained.
“Over the years we have insisted on effective control measures to maintain excellence in the municipality. We thank the employees and our stakeholders for maintaining excellence. Without them, this could not have been achieved,” Khenisa said.
Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet raised concerns around the state of South Africa’s municipalities which were unveiled in a report released by the Auditor-General.
The report revealed that there was widespread mismanagement and irregular spending across the country’s 257 municipalities, and despite repeated warnings, the situation continued to deteriorate.
In response, the cabinet said that the national government would have to intervene to improve service delivery and the capacity of specific municipalities.
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