On Sunday, 5 July, Finance MEC Nkululeko Dunga presented the 2024/2025 municipal audit outcomes and only two municipalities out of eleven achieved clean audits.
According to Dunga’s report, six municipalities received unqualified audit opinions with findings, two obtained clean audits, and three received qualified audit opinions.
He added that the six municipalities that received unqualified audit opinions with findings were Mogale City Local Municipality, Rand West City Local Municipality, Sedibeng District Municipality, Lesedi Local Municipality, and others he grouped within the same category, while stressing that Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni had both regressed to qualified audit opinions during the current audit cycle.
“We must commend Midvaal Local Municipality and the West Rand District Municipality, which sustained clean audit opinions for 13 and 2 consecutive years, respectively. Proof that clean governance is possible in this province when leadership commits to it,” Dunga said.
“Gauteng is not a poor province. This is a province with capital, and the Auditor-General has found, again and again, that we are not channeling these resources effectively enough to deal with the challenges our people actually face. This is not a story about the absence of money. It is a story about the absence of discipline in how that money is spent.”
He warned that deteriorating financial management is driving poor service delivery, crumbling infrastructure and rising irregular expenditure across municipalities.
Dunga said financial reporting across Gauteng municipalities had continued to deteriorate, with only 42% submitting good-quality performance reports.
Irregular expenditure across municipalities increased from R6.6 billion in the 2020/21 financial year to R14.44 billion in 2024/25.
Over the current administration, Gauteng municipalities accumulated R45.92 billion in irregular expenditure.
