Adv. Kholeka Gcaleka said her office is conducting 123 investigations across different Free State institutions, including provincial departments, municipalities, and entities. 

She cited three provincial departments – Agriculture, Health, and Cooperative Governance (Cogta) – as those probed or those with remedial action issued by her office. Gcaleka is on a two-day visit to the province, which is troubled by a lack of service delivery, including water supply, among others.  

ALSO READ: Acting PP in Bloem to meet with leadership

Gcaleka said she is in the province to meet with the leadership of the province and the Speaker of the Legislature, Zanele Sifuba, to address some of the issues her office has been picking up after several investigations. 

"We are meeting with the executive. We are meeting the Legislature separately. Firstly, to address the issues of the executive which we identified through our investigations and our reports, such as maladministration, procurement challenges, staff and service delivery issues. And based on these we are also outlining to them how we believe that, according to our statistics, they are implementing or not implementing our remedial action. This has a direct consequence on governance reforms within the provinces"

Adv. Gcaleka says the remedial actions her office will be proposing will be addressing the system governance and governance administrative challenges.

In 2022, the Auditor-General (AG), Tsakani Maluleke, told Members of Parliament (MPs) at the National Assembly (NA) that the Free State municipalities have continued their wasteful spending of taxpayers' money with irregular expenditure increasing by almost R2 billion.

ALSO READ: Free State municipalities' irregular spending grows by R2 billion

Maluleke said the irregular expenditure increased from R7,63 billion to R9,18 billion. AG Maluleke further indicated in her report that the audit outcomes of the province regressed over the term of the previous administration.

Maluleke also said this is because the municipal Public Accounts Committees did not perform timeous investigations.

ALSO READ: Free State municipalities fail to trace taxpayers' money

In 2022, AG Maluleke also announced that only two Free State Provincial Departments and two entities - of which one falls under Police, Roads and Transport -  received clean audits in the Public Finance Management Act's (PFMA) audit outcomes.

This was announced during the high-level meeting with the ousted Premier Sisi Ntombela and her team of MECs, including Cooperative Governance (Cogta), Treasury, Transport, Health and Public Works.

Maluleke announced that Departments and Entities – including the Provincial Treasury, Cogta, the Fleet Management and the Housing Fund – all received clean audits whilst Social Development and the Free State Gambling, Tourism and Liquor Authority both improved their audit outcomes from qualified to unqualified with findings.

ALSO READ: Only two Free State departments received clean audits - VIDEO

OFM News