Joburg's staggering R45.16 billion write-off highlights urgent need for financial accountability

Joburg Mayor Dada Morero.

The City of Johannesburg and its municipal entities have written-off R45.16 billion in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful (UIFW) expenditure over the past five years.

This was revealed by the municipality in the joint meeting with the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) and the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

Figures presented in Parliament show that R24.46bn in UIFW expenditure was regularised or written off in 2024/25, R11.48bn in 2023/24 and another R5.74bn in 2022/23.

The municipality informed the committees that the peak balance of UIFW expenditure was R23.6bn in the 2023/24 financial and that R13.3bn was the post audit balance at the end of June last year, which is a reduction of almost 44%.