Irregular expenditure, or spending outside the prescripts of the law, at South African municipalities increased by over 50% 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% 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-million), litigation and claims (R23-million) and other matters…”
Unauthorised expenditure stood at R12.7-billion – remaining at almost the same levels as the 2014/15 financial year. Most (99%) of this unauthorised expenditure related to municipalities that overspent on their budgets.