The Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, which includes Bloemfontein, revealed that it spent R5.5 million and received nothing in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was revealed in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality’s consolidated annual report for the 2023\/2024 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report revealed significant accounting irregularities at the municipality, including large payments related to a new project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One problem started in March 2020 when the municipality appointed service providers to construct the new Thaba Nchu Community Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The municipality\u2019s accounting officer misaligned the construction periods of the service providers and the contractor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The service providers were appointed in March 2020. However, the contractor was only appointed in June 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The municipality had to extend the service providers’ appointments twice, once to 8 March 2023 and again to 31 July 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The municipality said that during these extensions, there were periods when the contractor was unable to access professional services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The contractor submitted two claims for the delays, totalling R3.6 million, which the municipality paid in May 2023 and June 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The R3.6 million expense did not benefit the municipality and was a wasteful expense caused by the municipality\u2019s mismanagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the reporting date of 30 June 2024, no financial loss was recovered, and no disciplinary action was taken against the responsible parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the same report, the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality reported another case of wasteful expenditure on constructing a fire station in Botshabelo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The municipality appointed service providers for the project in January 2020 but only appointed a contractor two years later, in June 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This again caused the municipality to extend the term service providers twice, first to March 2023 and then again to July 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The municipality stated that there were periods when no service providers were appointed to the project, causing delays for the contractor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The contractor submitted claims for the delays totalling R1.9 million, which the municipality paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The R1.9 million did not benefit the municipality or the public and was a clear wasteful expense caused by municipal mismanagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The annual report stated that the accounting officer was notified of the material financial irregularity on 5 June 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The annual report further highlighted that the accounting officer did not take appropriate action to resolve the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the reporting date, no disciplinary action or other steps were taken to address the accounting officer’s failures or identify any misconduct from other individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were also no steps taken to determine whether these payments to the contractors were fraudulent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality paid R5.5 million to contractors due to construction delays. This money was wasted, and the residents received nothing in return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, which includes Bloemfontein, revealed that it spent R5.5 million and received nothing in return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":812827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[21889,21888],"class_list":["post-814950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-bloemfontein","tag-mangaung-metropolitan-municipality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814950"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814974,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814950\/revisions\/814974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}