Cape Agulhas Municipality has achieved a prestigious milestone by receiving an unqualified audit report from the Auditor General of South Africa for the ninth consecutive year.
Cape Agulhas, Executive Mayor Paul Swart, expressed pride at the news: “I am extremely proud of this achievement as the audit process was longer than usual and we have been awaiting the outcome for some time.
“Achievement of a clean audit emphasises our commitment to our community to provide clean administration, good governance, and excellent service delivery. Despite challenges over the last few years, we have focussed significantly on capital projects, including upgrades to our ageing infrastructure, to create an environment conducive to attracting economic investments and development, and we are starting to reap the benefits of this, as evidenced by a high level of interest in development of our municipal area.”
A financially unqualified opinion with no findings (clean audit) means the municipality produced quality financial statements free of material misstatements (in other words, errors or omissions, which are so significant that they affect the credibility and reliability of the financial statements). Also, it has produced quality performance reports that measure and report on performance in a manner that is useful and reliable, and thirdly the municipality complied with key legislation.
This comes shortly after the accolade of being rated as the best municipality by Good Governance Africa (GGA) in the 2021 governance performance index.
Swart emphasised that these achievements are a direct result of hard work and commitment by the municipal council and its staff. “I would like to thank the Municipal Manager Eben Phillips, the Director: Finance and IT, Hannes van Biljon, the Internal Audit office led by Blackie Swart and all other officials who played their respective parts in ensuring this achievement. We acknowledge that there is always room for improvement and are continuously striving to improve service delivery and enhance the image of Africa’s most southern municipality.”
