Eastern Cape municipalities lose R82 million to wasteful expenditure and fraud

Local government in the Eastern Cape is festered with fraudulent and fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

In a written response to a parliamentary question, it emerged that 21 municipalities incurred fruitless and wasteful expenditure while 13 others incurred some fraud activity in the 2009/10 financial year. The combined amount of the fraud and waste was a staggering R82.482 million. For the response, click here:

Of the 45 municipalities in the province, 34 (or 75%) are implicated in this fiasco.

This issue highlights the seriousness of how the government’s policy of cadre deployment has resulted in unskilled and ill equipped financial officers being appointed to run municipal finances in many of these municipalities. Read more ...