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The financial mismanagement in the crippled Tokologo Local Municipality is a textbook example of how badly the cadre deployment policy of the ANC has destroyed South Africa. This small municipality has been adopting an unfunded budget for five consecutive years against the warning of the DA that the practice is wrong, unsustainable and will not yield any fruitful results.

With an average collection rate of 21% for the past three financial years which is far below the national norm of 95%, and non-cost reflective tariffs, the municipality will not be able to pay its creditors. Even though the finance department of the municipality has been stable with a permanent CFO, a Revenue Manager and Accountant positions filled, there has been no monitoring of the approved cost containment policy and a lack of control over the cash flow of the institution.

The municipality has two main sources of revenue which are property rates and taxes, and service charges in the form of sales of electricity, water, refuse collection, and sewage. The municipality has however lost this stream of revenue due to an ineffective billing system and low collection of rates. This has led to an uncontrollable increase in the debtors' books.

We have received a considerable number of complaints from ratepayers whose accounts for water utilities have been inflated to as high as R3000 to R7000 per month while some have received statements of accounts under their names with wrong addresses.

We call on the municipality to conduct a Skills Audit as a matter of urgency to determine the minimum levels of competency that have been performed at the institution, especially in the Finance Department. Furthermore, the municipality must do a thorough verification of qualifications for all workers in the municipality to determine the skills gap in the institution.

Issued by Hismajesty Maqhubu - DA Councillor Tokologo Local Municipality