Durban — The eThekwini Municipality is contemplating writing off R727 million in unauthorised expenditure on the City’s Revenue Management System (RMS).
This comes after eThekwini Municipal Public Accounts Committee, on Tuesday, resolved that the irregular expenditure incurred on the project in the amount of R727 251 789.00 be written off on the basis that the municipality had derived value from the system as it was currently utilised as revenue billing and receipting system.
It further said that in the event that the amount that could be recommended for recovery had been prescribed.
The committee said that having been presented with irregular expenditure amounting to R727 251 789.00, which had been incurred on the RMS project, the City sought further information about the process undertaken to procure the system. It said that this included that the Auditor-General deemed all expenditure incurred on the project irregular.
In its deliberations, the City was advised as follows:
- In 2003, the municipality took a decision to develop its revenue management system in-house rather than buy an off-the-shelf product.
- Following a public process, the council in 2003 purchased the Virtual Works Platform that was Microsoft enabled. RMS was then developed on this system, and in 2004, the replacement of the revenue management system, COINS, was approved.
- The RMS project pre-dated the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) Regulations. However, once the SCM Regulations became effective, the supply chain management processes were undertaken in 2013 and 2016. Both contracts were awarded to the City Works by the Bid Adjudication Committee (BAC).
DA caucus leader councillor Thabani Mthethwa said that for years, the DA has raised numerous red flags to the council about the funding of the system.
IFP leader in eThekwini, Mdu Nkosi, added his voice, saying that the IFP has long been warning eThekwini against the system that was failing.
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