The DA will write to the Municipal Manager of Lepelle Nkumpi Local Municipality, Adelaide Morongwe Monyepao, to provide reasons for the material findings made by the Auditor General (A-G) in her 2021/2022 audit report presented to the council in January 2023.
The A-G gave the municipality a qualified audit opinion and found that the municipality’s finances regressed from unqualified audit opinions received for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years.
The A-G highlighted various challenges including:
Insufficient audit evidence for the amount of R4 462 938 that was processed for leave pay-outs which increased to R7 889 990 without any justification for the adjustment
Misstatements were identified due to errors in the cash flows from operating activities, including grants incorrectly/ overstated by R6 114 906, cash from agency fees, fines and other income were understated by R15 757 327 and employee costs understated by R20 958 507.
Adequate controls not in place for reconciling the statements (budget to actual expenditure). Misstatements amounted to almost R3 billion and are incorrectly recorded amounts on assets connected to responsibilities on original budgets, budget adjustments, final budget and budget adjustments
Irregular expenditure amounting to R33 921 069 and unauthorised expenditure amounting to R22 719 244 with no reasonable preventative steps taken.
Lepelle Nkumpi municipality seems to be a dumping ground for incompetent ANC cadres incapable to present accurate financial statements in line with the operating standards of General Recognised Accounting Practice.
The DA will further request that Ms Monyepoa provide a list of all the consequence management processes implemented during the year under review.
