Thursday, February 23, 2012
   
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Press releases

Free health screening at reproductive health awareness days

Communities in the Ekurhuleni area are encouraged to access the free health screening services that are being offered by the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality’s Health Department as part of the reproductive health awareness days.

Read more: Free health screening at reproductive health awareness days

 

Enter your pre-scholars for kiddies olympics 2012

The pre-school years are the most important in the development of a child, so why then do we leave the introduction of sport until primary school?

Read more: Enter your pre-scholars for kiddies olympics 2012

 

Let us help you to help others: applications grants-in-aid

Interested and deserving institutions and organisations within Ekurhuleni that make a difference

Read more: Let us help you to help others: applications grants-in-aid

 

30 works by 30 artists showcasing 30 points of views

The City of Ekurhuleni is pleased to announce its latest exhibition “30 I 30” which is to open next week Saturday, February 25, at the Springs Art Gallery at 16:00.

Read more: 30 works by 30 artists showcasing 30 points of views

 

Education is key to responding to severe weather patterns

The threat of global warming to communities around the world especially in developing countries like South Africa is more real today than ever before.

Read more: Education is key to responding to severe weather patterns

 

Youth calls for more use of social media in fight against hiv & aids

Government, NGO’s and all stakeholders involved in creating awareness on HIV and AIDS should take note.

Read more: Youth calls for more use of social media in fight against hiv & aids

 

Dis-Chem ride for sight race lives up to expectations

Arran Brown, winner of the 24th The Dis-Chem Ride for Sight (DRFS) has commended the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality

Read more: Dis-Chem ride for sight race lives up to expectations

 

Services at the brakpan licensing centre affected

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The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality appeals to patrons of the Brakpan Licensing Centre to exercise patience as the centre is operating under limited capacity following a robbery.

Read more: Services at the brakpan licensing centre affected

 

Yet another unqualified audit for the city of Ekurhuleni

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The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) has received yet another unqualified audit opinion from the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) for the third time in as many years. The city received the same status in 2008/2009, again in 2009/2010 and the last financial year – 2010/11.

This is indeed a great achievement and can be attributed to amongst others, the hard work and dedication by of (EMM) politicians, management and staff, as well as to the value added by the Auditor General’s office in the past few years.

“It gives me great pleasure to report that once again we have received a clean bill of financial health from the Auditor-General for the 2010/2011 financial year,” announced an elated executive mayor Clr Mondli Gungubele at the council meeting this morning. “A lot of hard work went into ensuring that we maintain this status and we shall continue working very closely with the AG’s office to improve on our handling of public funds as a city.”

This unqualified audit opinion contains certain matters of emphasis though. These revolve around Supply Chain Management lapses, ICT and Human Resources-related concerns, few housekeeping issues in respect of performance, as well as long-term liquidity concerns due to water and electricity losses. There is also the issue of a high debt being written off, Gungubele added. “However, we are now zooming into these and a strategy to make them a thing of the past is already in place and this will include the quarterly review sessions to monitor the internal control environment.”

“The Mayoral Committee has directed the senior management of the City to set timeframes by which we anticipate to have resolved all the areas of the AG’s concern.”

On 14 July 2009 the Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs introduced the launch of Operation Clean Audit 2014.  The strategic vision and objective of the project is that by 2014 all municipalities will have achieved clean audits on their financial statements and that by 2011 all municipalities must have dealt or cleaned disclaimers and adverse opinions.

“The Ekurhuleni Metro has come a long way in the past few years in moving towards a ‘clean’ audit opinion, as is evident now. Among our efforts was the establishment of a committee in the previous financial year, namely the Operation Clean Audit (OPCA) Steering Committee,” explains the metro’s Chief Financial Officer Zakes Myeza.  

“This dramatically enhanced the OPCA Project, which has been running for a few years already. The mission and objective of the steering committee is to oversee the OPCA project on a strategic level in order to ensure, as far as possible, a clean audit report/opinion as soon as possible.”  

One of the steering committee’s first objectives was to resolve all matters that would normally lead to qualified audit reports in the past, as well as to fast track efforts in addressing identified risk areas.  This meant improved in internal controls, quality controls of financial reporting, record keeping, revenue enhancement, compliance with relevant legislation, further risk identification etc.

In addition to this, a number of key controls were identified which are being monitored on a monthly basis. These controls enable EMM to identify possible problem areas and implement corrective measures to resolve it timeously.   

The current financial year is already halfway through, but if the previous two financial years are anything to go by, EMM will not disappoint in its efforts to maintain the best possible audit outcome in the years to follow, concludes Myeza.

Meanwhile, after interrogating the National Treasury report on the state of finances of municipalities the City of Ekurhuleni has come to a different conclusion than that of the national department which painted a picture that the city was in a financial distress.

“Using the finalized audited financial statements the picture immediately points to a positive situation confirming that at this juncture, and nowhere in the near future Ekurhuleni is not in a financial distress,” explains Myeza, adding that the city used the same variables as used by National Treasury, but the only difference was that it was on the audited financial statements instead of the unaudited ones used by treasury.





Issued by


Zweli Dlamini
Mayoral Spokesperson
082 573 6464/011 999 0098