Pretoria - The City of Tshwane has come under fire for seeking for an extension to submit financial statements to the auditor-general (AG) in a bid to avoid the repeat of 2021/22 financial year when it incurred an adverse audit opinion.
The City was then found wanting for not correctly valuing assets relating to electricity, roads and stormwater infrastructure assets, as well as community in accordance with the standards of generally recognised accounting practice, among other financial transgressions.
Former chief financial officer, Umar Banda, was blamed for misrepresenting the city’s 2021/22 financial statements to the AG. He was subsequently fired and his court bid to overturn the dismissal at the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, in December was unsuccessful.
Yesterday, the EFF in Gauteng condemned the City’s request for an extension after it failed to meet the AG’s deadline for submitting financial statements.
In a media statement the party said the metro’s failure to submit the financial statements on time was “a contradiction of generally recognised accounting practice and the Municipal Financial Management Act which requires compliance from municipalities to submit financial statements on time for an audit”.
The party said: “The City of Tshwane under the DA has continuously asked for postponement in terms of submission, citing the need to address the findings by the AG in the year 2021/22.”
According to the party, the city’s move was an attempt “to cook and configure the books to achieve a non-existent positive financial audit” in collaboration with municipal officials.
The criticisms against the municipality came after city manager Johann Mettler announced that a postponement had been sought from the AG after a submission deadline of August 31 was missed.
Mettler said the Tshwane audit and performance committee recommended to the city to postpone the submission date of its annual financial statements and performance.
The recommendation, he said, was made to afford the city sufficient time to finalise other outstanding matters on the financials and to afford the city sufficient time to adequately address some of the findings made by the AG in the 2021/22 financial year.
The city would submit the financials to the AG within three months.
Mettler said: “The city management, together with the executive, took a cautious approach this time around to ensure that we quality-assure the financials in order to avoid a recurrence of last year’s AG findings. There are a few areas where we discovered that there were some glaring gaps which needed to be plugged.”
He said the city wanted to do things differently this year by avoiding repeating mistakes made last year.
“We’re meticulous and paying attention to every detail. We are confident that not only will we meet the new deadline, but we will ensure that we present credible and sound financial statements to the AG,” Mettler said.
The EFF called out the leniency of the AG in dealing with the DA-led coalition, claiming that “if this was a black-led municipality decisive action would have been taken by now and the media would have made sure that this issue made it to the headlines”.
The party called on the provincial and national government to intervene by placing the municipality under administration.
“The City of Tshwane has consistently received adverse financial audit reports, the latest being the R10 billion irregular expenditure in the financial year,” the EFF said.
Pretoria News