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City of Johannesburg Audit Outcomes: Stagnation Amid Ongoing Financial and Infrastructure Challenges
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The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) has shown stagnation in its audit outcomes, with no significant improvement despite efforts to address longstanding issues. According to the Auditor-General’s office, the city’s financial health remains a major concern, with challenges in debt collection, revenue generation, and compliance with financial regulations.
Dumisani Cebekhulu, business unit leader for Gauteng at the Auditor-General, noted that while the City of Johannesburg has faced financial difficulties for years, these issues continue to impact its audit outcomes. The city’s inability to address debt collection and revenue generation has led to its stagnation in the audit process.
“The City has struggled with financial health for a number of years, particularly in revenue collection and compliance,” said Cebekhulu. “These issues are impacting the city’s overall service delivery capacity.”
Cebekhulu further explained that infrastructure problems also persist, primarily due to insufficient funds for maintenance and a lack of investment in new infrastructure. This failure to invest has significantly hindered the city’s ability to deliver effective services to its residents.
Another critical issue raised was the City’s growing irregular expenditure, which increased from R8.8 billion in the 2019-2020 financial year to R11.1 billion in 2022-2023. Of this amount, only 42% was written off, and zero was recovered or condoned. Cebekhulu attributed this to poor management of supply chain processes and a lack of compliance monitoring.
“The city continues to have huge irregular expenditure and non-compliance issues, which affects its ability to fulfill its mandate to provide services to residents,” he said.
In the 2023-24 financial year, the CoJ and its 12 entities received an unqualified audit with findings. However, only the Joburg Market and Joburg Theatre received clean audits. Cebekhulu emphasized the importance of these two entities serving as examples for the others in terms of best practices for achieving clean audits.
The Auditor-General’s office has urged the City to strengthen internal control processes and reassess its service delivery model to address ongoing challenges. Despite these recommendations, the city’s audit outcomes reflect a stagnant situation that continues to limit its ability to provide adequate services to residents.
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