Johannesburg – The Steve Tshwete Local Municipality (STLM) is celebrating another year of clean governance despite the ongoing Covid-19 challenges.
In a recently tabled report by Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke on the local government audit outcomes for the 2019-20 financial year, Steve Tshwete Municipality is among 27 municipalities out of 257 municipalities across the country that got a clean audit.
The report shows that over R32bn was lost in fraud and corruption, and R11bn on unauthorised expenditure during the financial year.
The audit focused on four areas, namely the Annual Financial Statements, Audit of Performance Objectives, Compliance and Internal Controls, and was conducted based on the international auditing standards for the year under review.
This report makes STLM to be the best performing municipality in the implementation of the Local Economic Development (LED).
The municipality, which is located in the Nkangala District Municipality with a seat in Middelburg, has a 20-year history of clean governance.
Municipal Manager, Advocate Bheki Khenisa, says the municipality is pleased with the findings and will continue to work hard to deliver clean governance.
“We are proud to have maintained our reputation as one of the best performing municipalities in the country. We boast of a 20-year history of clean transparent governance and excellent service delivery to our ratepayers with a payment rate of over 95 percent despite the Covid-19 financial crisis that has seen municipality revenues decline significantly,” says Khenisa.
He adds that the good payment rate and proper internal controls have helped the municipality to render “the highest quality of continued service delivery for the residents of the municipality”.
“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,” says Khenisa.
