Municipal Manager Ntombi Baart said that experts from the national treasury will help Makana Municipality overhaul its underperforming financial management system.
Municipal Manager Ntombi Baart said that experts from the national treasury will help Makana Municipality overhaul its underperforming financial management system.
Earlier this year, the Auditor General released a report for the 2009/10 financial year which provides a reflection on how the municipality is governed. The municipality received the least favourable rating; a disclaimer.
Because of the nature of the municipality's financial statements, Baart said the national treasury had deployed experts to provide the municipality with technical assistance for the next three years.
In addition to this, Baart said the Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs had sent someone to help carry out the functions of the Chief Financial Officer position, as the current CFO, Jackson Ngcelwane is suspended. Baart said that the disciplinary process against Ngcelwane would be concluded within three months.
She explained the future financial plans at a recent council meeting, adding that certain conditions were attached to the support from the national treasury, including that:
- The municipality needs to ensure that the Financial Management Improvement Plan is adopted within two months of the deployment of technical assistance (i.e. 22 August). Executive Mayor, Zamuxolo Peter, announced the drafting of this plan to restructure the finance directorate – and the institution at large – at a council meeting in June.
- The budget steering committee needs to ensure that the financial management reforms are clearly outlined and the mechanisms for this change are in place.
- The support must be reported to Parliament. "This signifies the importance of the intervention," said Baart.
At the meeting, the council also learnt that the municipality intended to revise the 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 annual budgets.
Providing the national treasury approves the proposed roll-over of unspent funds, the plan is to increase the current capital budget. The unspent funds were not included in the annual budget for the current year.
It's expected that the council will know by the end of this month whether the roll-over application has been approved.
