Every nation is run by a ruling class that is often divided into different political parties. But the ruling elite has many fraternal ties among themselves, including shared beliefs and interests.
It becomes unwise to make absolute statements about boundaries between their organisations, especially if they share the same thinking and practices.
Since 2016, for the past six years, the DA has run the metro of Tshwane, which now has the distinction of being the only metro on a list of 17 municipalities that have failed to submit annual financial statements for auditing by the auditor-general by August 31.
The speaker of parliament must act against the City of Tshwane for this lapse.
This is also most worrying because the DA presents itself as the political entity that can rescue the country from rampant financial mismanagement and general maladministration.
Moneyweb captures the picture of Tshwane in the most spine-chilling manner.
“Following an adverse opinion by Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke last year, [which] cost former mayor Randall Williams his job, the cash-strapped City of Tshwane has missed the 31 August deadline for submission of its financial statements for FY (financial year) 2022/2023 to the AG’s office.”
It becomes clear that by August 31, 2022, the City of Tshwane was not ready to submit the annual financial statements to the AG for auditing as required by the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA).
In 2022, the city submitted annual financial statements that were regarded as rubbish by its own audit and performance committee, which pointed to large gaps that had not been attended to in the previous five years.
The collapse in the financial administration and accounting is regarded as systemic, encompassing councillors and staff. There is a R4.7-billion value-added tax liability that costs the city R100-million per month in interest and penalties, which has been identified by the AG as fruitless and wasteful
expenditure.
These problems become particularly significant because it is often claimed that accounting and technical skills are in short supply in the rural towns but are plentiful in the big metros.
Thus, this unfolding financial fiasco, which for more than five years occurs in a sea of chartered accountants and other financial experts in the surrounding territory of Gauteng, is troubling.
This tells us that there are serious and most severe moral failures in the governing class, where existing problems cannot be solved even when tremendous expertise is well within reach.
Clearly, that deficiency is not restricted to President Cyril Ramaphosa and his ANC, but evidence shows that the spirit of negligence and failure has captured the DA as well.
The AG flags Tshwane as one of the troubling municipalities in light of its report on material irregularities committed in municipalities that now amount to R5.19-billion.
The R1.6-billion of this amount relates to the tragic VBS Mutual Bank bankruptcy, which entangles both the EFF and the ANC in terms of moving monies from municipalities into the VBS Mutual Bank outside the prescripts of the MFMA and any Treasury regulations and guidelines of the time.
The additional tragedy is that the VBS Mutual Bank was a successful black-owned bank that needed competent and morally sound support to expand and support the growth of black entrepreneurs in the country.
That bank survived apartheid and was killed by the so-called freedom fighters, once again highlighting the worrying moral fibre of the ruling elites.
As voters, we do need to demand higher morality. The town of Beaufort West, which was the stomping ground of the Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader, Gayton Mackenzie, also has a rich history of irregular, unauthorised, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure reported by the AG,
combined with extremely poor audit outcomes.
When we take a critical view of our leadership across the country, we must also take note that the 21 or so municipalities that got clean audit outcomes in the Western Cape are responsible for a budget of about R84-billion, which basically is just about the size of the Joburg Metro.
So, as we say, the DA runs well in the municipal sector but if you were to add the Tshwane metro to the total municipal budgets under the DA, then the average starts to go pear-shaped.
I am saying we must be stringent, exacting, and rigorous when we comment on our leaders. No one must be free to claim easy victories.
- Swana is a political analyst, an academic and a member of the 70s Group
