Pretoria - Tshwane MMC for Corporate and Shared Services, Kingsley Wakelin, is confident that the multiparty coalition government is on track to achieve better audit results.
This was after the municipality incurred an adverse opinion from the auditor-general for the 2021/22 financial year.
Wakelin said his department would focus on doing more with less and ensure that it was efficient and clean as part of the objective to address the city’s financial situation.
His approach was in line with Mayor Cilliers Brink’s commitment of a clean government made during the State of the Capital Address.
He said: “The city has already realised savings of over R120 million through our strategy of reducing costs on leased buildings. So far, R25m has been allocated for the refurbishment of our Midtown Building which is a multi-year project aimed at reducing our annual costs on rented buildings.”
He said R50m had been budgeted for the purchase of new vehicles as part of the strategy to rationalise fleet management.
“This will result in the city saving about R275m that was in the past spent annually on leased vehicles. While we acknowledge that there are increases in the cost of living, the harsh reality we have to face as a city is either to be financially prudent or risk total financial collapse,” he said.
The city decided not to budget for salary increases for both employees and councillors in the current financial year.
“I am also pleased to report that the city will undertake a full review of its organisational structure so that we have a streamlined structure with roles that are clearly aligned to our service delivery priorities,” Wakelin said.
The city budgeted R100m on IT systems and he said the move was meant “to make Tshwane more efficient and accessible to residents, while enhancing accountability and compliance”.
“The roll-out of the updated SAP platform will bring improvements to e-Tshwane’s capabilities that allows improved services for residents, while strengthening revenue collection and compliance with national treasury requirements so that we can achieve a clean audit. We will also spend over R34m on internal and forensic auditing to root out corruption and clean house.
“Our main objective is to see the City of Tshwane achieve better audit results going forward,” he said.
Pretoria News