By Bongani Mdakane
Johannesburg – Gauteng Premier David Makhura assured the residents of Gauteng that he is determined to run a clean administration and had taken steps to ensure people of integrity are occupying government positions.
“We remain committed to integrity and ethics in the Gauteng City Region.
The procurement irregularities and corruption allegations during the pandemic have forced us to go back and review the e¤cacy of all the anti-corruption measures. We will strengthen our prevention, detection, investigation and resolution procedures and push ahead with the institutionalisation of clean governance,” said Makhura.
Gauteng will this year roll out the open tender and integrity management systems in all municipalities to improve the ethical environment. The administration has finalised a total of 73 forensic investigations and 66 cases were referred to law-enforcement agencies for criminal investigation and civil recovery processes.
Makhura announced that members of the executive council have submitted their details for lifestyle audit that is being conducted by the State Security Agency (SSA).
The outcome of the audit will be made public.
“The implementation of the open tender system, the introduction of integrity management measures, the significant advances on clean audits and the four-year-old partnership with the SIU stand as testimony to our commitment to fighting corruption, as well as promoting clean governance,” Makhura said.
The administration has also expanded its vetting of senior officials to the level of supply chain management officials.
To this end, 65% of senior managers and 70% of supply chain management officials have been vetted by the SSA and the rest shall be completed this year.
The matter of great concern is that the financial position of many municipalities deteriorated during Covid-19 due to the loss of over R8.75-billion in revenue between April and July 2020 in municipalities, according to Makhura.
The loss had negative implications for service delivery and a£ected the resilience of municipalities.
This resulted in a decline in spending on Capex projects by 42% and a decline in cash collection due to suspended credit control measures. Several municipalities struggled to pay their creditors such as Eskom and Rand Water.
“We are working with all our municipalities in the province to improve their financial viability which was impacted by the national lockdown.
We have a Multi- Disciplinary Team of Revenue Experts as part of the Debt Management Committee to help struggling municipalities to develop an Integrated Revenue Enhancement and Debtors Management Plan and to ensure accurate billing.”
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