uMsunduzi Mayor Mzi Thebolla and municipal manager Felani Mndebele led a large municipal delegation to Parliament on Wednesday to appear before Scopa over the latest audit outcomes and SIU investigation.
The Msunduzi Municipality has improved its audit outcome from a qualified opinion to an unqualified audit opinion for the 2024/25 financial year, but serious governance failures, escalating irregular expenditure, and weak consequence management continue to plague the municipality.
Appearing before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Wednesday, municipal officials acknowledged that while financial controls had improved, longstanding issues involving procurement irregularities, delayed disciplinary processes, forensic investigations and political disagreements within council continue to undermine accountability.
Municipal officials told Members of Parliament that the city had received qualified audit opinions in both the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years before improving to an unqualified outcome in 2024/25.
Odwa Langa, senior manager in the office of budget and treasury in the municipality, attributed the improvement to stricter internal controls, audit action plans and increased monitoring by management structures.
