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Today, the DA filed a complaint with the office of the Public Protector to probe Giyani Local Municipality’s wasteful and unauthorised expenditure of over R40 million in the 2016/2017 financial year.

While money is wasted in this municipality, residents struggle with high rates of unemployment and poor service delivery.

Of the R40 million irregular expenditure, R20 million was incurred as a result of fruitless and wasteful expenditure while R20 million was due to unauthorised expenditure which cannot be accounted for due to overspending.

The municipality also invested a staggering R100 million in VBS Mutual Bank on the 1st of March 2017 but only R2 million was realised as interest from the account in the last four months.

Furthermore, the municipality underspent on employment-related costs by R3.3 million due to the budgeted positions (such as Director Community Service, Municipal Manager, Director of Planning and Manager of Risk) not being filled.

The municipality further underspent on its infrastructure budget while the budget for remunerating councillors currently stood at 104% (overspending) of the total adjusted budget.

This proves that the financial affairs of the municipality are in disarray and an urgent investigation is needed to hold all the responsible officials accountable for the wasted public funds.

The DA believes that a transparent and accountable government is crucial to ensure sound financial control.

In DA-led municipalities, money which is meant to be spent on service delivery is used for that exact purpose and not squandered through negligent and corrupt activities.

The Public Protector needs to investigate this as a matter of urgency. The abuse of state resources cannot be tolerated while the poor in Giyani suffer due to unemployment and a lack of service delivery.

Issued by DA