PARLIAMENT, June 21 (ANA) – Irregular expenditure, or spending outside the prescripts of the law, at South African municipalities increased by over 50 percent to R16.81 billion, Auditor-General (AG) Kimi Makwetu said on Wednesday.
Releasing the audit outcomes of local government for the 2015/16 year, Makwetu noted that the figure could be much more as one third of the country’s 263 municipalities disclosed they did not know what amount was spent irregularly or that the amounts disclosed were incomplete.
“The year-end balance of irregular expenditure that had accumulated over many years and had not been dealt with (through recovery, condonement or writing off) was R41.7 billion,” an executive summary of the AG’s report revealed.
In contrast, fruitless and wasteful expenditure was down by 21 percent and stood at R901 million for the 2015/16 financial year.
“The general nature of the fruitless and wasteful expenditure related to interest and penalties on overdue accounts and late payments (at R814 mln), litigation and claims (R23 mln) and other matters…”
Unauthorised expenditure stood at R12.7 billion – remaining at almost the same levels as the 2014/15 financial year. Most (99 percent) of this unauthorised expenditure related to municipalities that overspent on their budgets.
– African News Agency (ANA)
(Image:CorruptionWatch)
