There has been no improvement in the audits of South Africa's municipalities, Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke has announced, with only 41 out of SA's 257 municipalities receiving clean audits. 

Of the 41, 22 were in the Western Cape, two in Gauteng, five in the Northern Cape, four in the Eastern Cape, one in Limpopo, four in Mpumalanga and three in KwaZulu-Natal. For the fifth year running, not a single Free State municipality received a clean audit.  

Meanwhile, only a quarter of municipalities submitted their financial statements to her office on time. 

"What we see looking at this year's audit outcomes is there is no improvement in the status of transparency, accountability, performance or integrity of local government," said Maluleke.

She said that compared to five years ago, 61 municipalities had improved their audit outcomes, while 56 had regressed. This showed that her office's interventions to improve financial management were not being taken seriously.

"There hasn't been much movement in the right direction."

The AG said that poor or non-existent record-keeping was again bedevilling many municipalities, who often employed expensive consultants to try to make sense of their financials. 

At times, she said these consultants were employed to do the "very basics," such as VAT and tax returns, even though the municipalities have staff to do this. 

The Chris Hani municipality in the Eastern Cape, for example, paid a consultant R34-million for VAT submissions.

"You have to ask the question, where is the municipal manager? Where is the mayor?"

Worst of the worst 

Maluleke said that 25 municipalities received a disclaimer audit opinion from her office, while nine didn't even submit enough information for an opinion to be hazarded. 

A disclaimer is the worst result a municipality can receive from the AG, indicating that its financial statements have no value. 

"If you are unable to do the very basic thing of showing what you have done with public funds, it demonstrates that you have no commitment to living up to your moral obligation to serve as a steward," she said.

"It shows that you have absolutely no will in drive transparency and no interest in demonstrating accountability,"

She said her office dug into the financial statements of 10 of the worst municipalities to see if they could follow the trail of what they did with their money. 

For six of these municipalities, her office could not find out who was paid or calculate the rand value of what they spent. 

"We are none the wiser about where the money is gone," she said.