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Fact-Check — Did the EFF’s Ekurhuleni finance head achieve a clean audit?
In the City of Ekurhuleni, the finance department is headed by an EFF councillor. The party now claims that under their watch the city received a clean audit.
The finance department of the City of Ekurhuleni is led by an EFF councillor, Nkululeko Dunga. When the city tabled its 2022/23 Auditor-General report in mid-March, the EFF was quick to claim a victory for clean governance.
But is that really what the Auditor-General reported?
In the wake of the tabling of the latest Ekurhuleni audit outcomes, the EFF in Gauteng released a statement lauding the result as a victory for its finance head — saying that it indicated “clean and sound financial management and reporting practices”.
The EFF’s Gauteng branch retweeted a tweet claiming that Ekurhuleni had received “a clean audit” from the Auditor-General.
In addition, an editorial in the Sowetan reported that EFF MPs “claimed that under their watch the city received a clean audit”.
But the term “a clean audit” has a very specific meaning in the context of the Auditor-General.
According to the Auditor-General’s website, the term means:
“The financial statements are free from material misstatements (in other words, a financially unqualified audit opinion) and there are no material findings on reporting on performance objectives or non-compliance with legislation”.
This was not the outcome that the Ekurhuleni finance department actually received under the EFF’s watch.
Ekurhuleni received an unqualified audit opinion, which means:
“The financial statements contain no material misstatements. Unless we express a clean audit outcome, findings have been raised on either reporting on predetermined objectives or non-compliance with legislation, or both these aspects”.
In other words, there were adverse findings.
These were fairly significant: the Auditor-General found a total of R516-million in irregular expenditure, for instance, and R81-million worth of fruitless expenditure.
It is still a better outcome than for most South African municipalities. But it was also a downgrade from the previous year’s audit outcomes, which saw Ekurhuleni be named as the only metro in the country other than Cape Town to receive a clean audit.
As such, the EFF’s repeated use of the word “clean” to describe the audit result is factually misleading — given both the specific meaning of “clean” in this context, and the details of the Auditor-General’s actual findings. DM
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Well you didn’t expect the EFF to actually tell the truth, did you? Or maybe hey just don’t understand the concept? Either way, completely unfit to govern.
Probably didn’t understand the difference.
The probably dont even understand that they are not even remotely close to a condition where they could possibly even partially understand that they dont have the faintest idea about understanding, aka completely clueless and unfit to govern. Instead they snatch words out of space, draw the wrong interpretations and make bold and clueless statements
Which their equally clueless supporters believe.
Remember, it’s F for Zuma but A for woodwork… and F again for audit!
The EFF doesn’t have a clue in most matters of administration. This is simply graphic proof of that. If SA had to fall under EFF rule the economic chaos that would follow would probably be worse than what happened to Zimbabwe under Mugabe who was cherished by all our ANC and EFF politicians. Ramaphosa has even extended his revolting servility and friendship to Mnangagwa, a mass murderer and stealer of elections.
Did we expect anything different? Did any one single person think this was the truth? Dont make me laugh!
And if you read their election manifesto with free everything, increased grants and a basic income grant, you can see that they have no idea. The tax revenue base can barely support what is being done now, never mind the EFF’s promises. This is scary.
The AG should use unambiguous language as in “The audit stinks”.
“R516-million in irregular expenditure…and R81-million worth of fruitless expenditure”.
In ONE CITY, in ONE YEAR.
The amount of wastage of a scarce resource is mind boggling; the lack of any remorse is stupefying.