The Mangaung Concerned Community (MCC) group has long been calling for the metro council’s dissolution.

On Tuesday 13 February 2023, the Auditor-General’s report revealed that the audit outcome for the 2021/22 financial year for Mangaung deteriorated from unqualified, to qualified with findings. 

The leader of the MCC, Themba Zweni, says the audit outcome from the Office of the Auditor-General only confirmed their previous assertions. During this special council meeting, the Mayor of the troubled Metro, Mxolisi Siyonzana, mentioned the interventions are known to further contribute to failures. 

He detailed that Mangaung is a case in point of ministers bringing in people who are supposed to change a municipality for the better but fail. Siyonza also said ANC councillors of the metro warned him against passing the budget, which was assessed and changed by the national treasury and did not speak to the needs of the people. 

Zweni questioned the integrity of the current council and further called for its dissolvement.

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“The Auditor-General expressed exactly what we have been saying. It’s even worse, the Auditor-General says that the information provided by the leadership of the municipality cannot be trusted, we have always said that. We are also going to emphasise the fact that we have said there is no need to have these councillors. The mayor confessed that the national treasury is running this municipality. It simply confirms what we have always been saying, we have to dissolve this municipality. Why did councillors agree to this? Did they agree to this coercion to promote our interest as the community or to protect their income? Do we deserve this kind of public representatives? Why pay them a salary when one individual in National Treasury can do what they fail to do?” he asked.

Zweni further said that since the inception of the national Intervention in April 2022, Mangaung Councillors have been overpaid for not doing their job. He adds that each councillor in the metro has to justify why they have been receiving a monthly salary of R48 000 plus, for the past 14 months, when their constituents live in such abject living conditions.

Financial statements are either unqualified, qualified, or disclaimed. 

An unqualified opinion means that your financial statements are free of material error and may be relied upon. 

A qualified opinion means that your financial statements are auditable but have financial or compliance issues that materially affect one or more funds within the overall financial statement. 

A disclaimed opinion is very bad. It means your financial statements are not reliable, have material negative findings, or are not capable of being audited.

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