The City of Johannesburg will write off over R144 million in irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure after investigations into how the losses occurred.

Departments within the municipality incurred approximately R144 million in irregular expenditure and approximately R208,000 in fruitless and wasteful expenditure, according to a report tabled at council.

“The (municipal public accounts) committee received 15 investigative reports. Of the 16 recommendations, from the 15 reports, the committee agreed with 15 recommendations: to recommend that R143,841,628.82 of irregular expenditure and R207,765.39 of fruitless and wasteful expenditure be certified as irrecoverable and regularised,” the council heard.

According to the report tabled in council, these amounts include irregular and fruitless expenditure for the various departments, and the committee reviewed each investigative report and made a determination on the recoverability of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful (UIFW) expenditure in accordance with the Municipal Finance Management Act and the committee’s terms of reference.

“While the UIFW expenditure is too numerous to detail within this report, the investigative reports and the minutes of the Committee meetings may be made available for inspection.

“For each expenditure, the committee ensured that, if required, corrective action be undertaken to prevent a recurrence of the UIFW expenditure,” reads the report.

The committee stated that in order to perform continuing oversight, it will maintain a register of all UIFW expenditure written off/recovered, service providers involved, and track the implementation of corrective action recommended.

Council certified as irrecoverable and regularised the R144m in irregular expenditure by the City of Johannesburg for the 2012/13 to 2017/18 financial years, as well as the irrecoverable and regularised R207,765.39 in fruitless and wasteful expenditure for the 2019/20,2021/22, and 2022/23 financial years.

Councillors urged the accounting officer (acting city manager Kiba Kekana) to submit the report to the National Treasury, together with the minutes of the meeting of council that reflect the council resolution for the report, within seven working days of its adoption.

Additionally, group finance must submit a report with evidence attesting to the submission to the municipal public accounts committee.

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za

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