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The South African Local Government Association (Salga) says it is appointing more consultants to help fix municipalities. Chris Barron asked Salga’s portfolio head for municipal finance, fiscal policy & economic growth, Lerato Phasha ...
How will more consultants help fix municipalities?
As Salga, our mandate is to support and capacitate municipalities.
How does bringing in more consultants do that?
We’ve identified financial challenges and capacity constraints in these municipalities. For example, some low-capacity municipalities don’t have full staff complements in the finance department.
Many of them have internal finance units, don’t they?
But they’re not full capacity. So consultants bridge the gap until they can produce better audit findings.
The record where consultants have been brought in to help municipalities is not very positive, is it?
Where we have appointed consultants, we’ve got value for money.
According to the auditor-general, 88% of municipalities use consultants, and most are still not getting clean audits.
At Salga we have been receiving clean audits for 13 years.
At how many municipalities?
Remember, we are the ones appointing consultants on behalf of municipalities, and they have produced results.
According to the auditor-general, only 39 out of 257 municipalities produced clean audits last year.
I’m saying, where we have appointed consultants, there have been results. When municipalities have appointed their own consultants ... the auditor-general emphasises that there is nothing wrong with consultants. The only problem is when you don’t get value for money.
According to the auditor-general, 88% of municipalities that use consultants don’t.
The auditor-general has not found us at Salga, where we have allocated resources, that we do not get value for money.
If your record is so good, why have you appointed consultants to so few failing municipalities?
We don’t have the financial capacity to do it at all the municipalities.
Are you saying you don’t have the capacity to carry out your mandate?
Like any other organisation, we do not have all the resources to cover all the capacity constraints that are in municipalities.
But you’re going to be appointing more consultants to more municipalities?
Yes.
Paying them to do what officials in these municipalities are already being paid to do?
Where we are allocating resources is where there is no capacity.
Hasn’t the auditor-general found that many of these municipalities have financial units?
I don’t disagree with the auditor-general. What she has found is that contract management is an issue in municipalities that use consultants.
Why hasn’t Salga been monitoring their use of consultants? Isn’t this your mandate?
We have.
So how do you explain that municipalities that paid R1.6bn for consultants in 2024/25 got so little value?
Salga is an advocacy group; we don’t have executive powers over municipalities. We advise them on consequence management.
Why don’t you make a noise about their appointing incompetent officials?
We advise in terms of the recruitment processes municipalities need to embark on.
What if they ignore you?
They’re well within their rights to do that.
If you can do so little, why should you continue to be a taxpayer-funded institution?
We provide support services and value according to our mandate.
Not according to the state of our municipalities, surely?
That’s your assessment. From our perspective, there is value that we have provided.
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