ActionSA is outraged by the latest Auditor-General’s (A-G) report, which paints a bleak picture of governance in eThekwini and confirms what residents have long known—the Municipality is failing dismally.
The report highlights severe delays in implementing critical water and electricity projects, exacerbating the already dire state of service delivery.
Water infrastructure remains inadequate, maintenance is virtually non-existent, and water losses remain alarmingly high. Instead of ensuring efficient resource management, the Municipality has no functional system to monitor water and electricity consumption, resorting to inaccurate estimations that burden residents with excessive and often incorrect bills.
Equally damning is the Municipality’s blatant disregard for accountability and consequence management. Officials who violate municipal laws face no repercussions, and even when investigations recommend disciplinary action, it is either ignored or conveniently forgotten.
This culture of impunity has led to an administration that is unresponsive, slow to act, and riddled with instability.
Debt collection for municipal services is yet another glaring failure, with outstanding debts taking up to 109 days to recover.
This unacceptable delay highlights the Municipality’s incapacity to manage finances effectively, further crippling its ability to provide basic services to residents.
The A-G also exposed the Municipality’s dishonest claims of service delivery “achievements.” The report found a lack of evidence to support these alleged successes, making it impossible to verify the quality or truth of what residents are being told.
This proves that eThekwini leadership is more concerned with misleading the public than actually fixing the city.
While irregular expenditure dropped from R2.4 billion in 2022/23 to R1.6 billion in 2023/24, this remains an unacceptable loss of public funds that should have been used to improve infrastructure and boost the local economy.
Even worse, the Municipality wrote off R3.9 billion in lost funds while only managing to recover R200 million. Shockingly, R1.1 billion remains unaccounted for, exposing the extent of waste and incompetence.
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities flagged by the A-G also pose a serious risk to municipal funds and sensitive information, leaving the city exposed to potential cyberattacks. This further highlights eThekwini’s failure to implement basic controls and safeguard critical data.
The city’s infrastructure crisis is deepening due to a lack of project planning, poor oversight, and the appointment of unqualified contractors who are allowed to underperform without consequences.
The absence of proper project monitoring and milestone assessments means taxpayers’ money continues to be wasted on delays, incomplete projects, and repeat non-compliance.
The findings of this report confirm that this Municipality lacks the leadership, accountability, and capacity to govern effectively.
Furthermore, ActionSA is deeply concerned that disciplinary reports from the City Integrity and Investigation Unit are never shared with council members. Yet, council is criticised for failing to exercise effective oversight in the Municipality.
With crucial information frequently withheld, council members are left unable to ensure that disciplinary recommendations are properly implemented.
A-G’s Findings is a Vote of No Confidence in EThekwini Council & City Manager