The City of Johannesburg has taken decisive steps to confront years of financial mismanagement, approving recommendations from its Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) to recover close to R9 million in irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure. Several cases have now been referred to disciplinary structures and the South African Police Service for further investigation.
The council also endorsed corrective actions within the Public Safety Department and the Group Corporate and Shared Services (GCSS), following months of scrutiny into how millions of rand were spent without adhering to legal procurement and budget processes.
As part of the clean-up, newly appointed City Manager Dr. Floyd Brink must table updated standard operating procedures and MFMA-aligned controls within 30 days.
DA Councillor Zander Shawe delivered a stark assessment, revealing that over R868 million from recent financial years had effectively vanished due to unlawful or improper expenditure. The amount includes R354 million in irregular expenditure requiring formal regularisation and R514 million in unauthorised spending that must be written off entirely.
Shawe highlighted that nearly R370 million was squandered by Group Risk Assurance over multiple years due to poor contract management, while Public Safety overspent its budget by more than R514 million.
“It’s half a billion rand that could have fixed fire engines or boosted JMPD visibility,” Shawe said, adding that MPAC has recommended recovering R1.7 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure and R7.2 million in irregular spending. Several officials may now face the disciplinary board and SAPS investigations.
MPAC Chairperson and EFF Councillor Sepetlele Raseruthe emphasised that the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) places a clear duty on municipalities to recover irregular, unauthorised, or wasteful expenditure unless formally declared irrecoverable by council.
He noted that the committee reviewed expenditure stretching as far back as the 2017/18 financial year, up to 2024/25, and found multiple cases where financial misconduct or fraud may have occurred. These, Raseruthe confirmed, will be escalated to the disciplinary board or the police.
The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) expressed discomfort with elements of the process, with Councillor Ronald Harris stating that while the MFMA allows for certain write-offs, approving the write-off of R868 million is “morally questionable” and “optically unacceptable.”
The council’s decisions set the stage for recovery efforts, disciplinary actions, and potential criminal cases—signalling a tougher stance against financial negligence in the country’s largest metro.
