Chairperson, with numerous qualified audit reports in the past showing local municipalities' underspending or reflecting incorrect financial information, the IFP welcomes the initiative by the National Treasury to train senior officials in leadership and municipal finance.
The lack of service delivery from provincial to local government has, to a certain extent, often been blamed on the lack of skills. The IFP hopes that the training of senior officials at local level is just the start of government interventions to address the problem of much-needed skills in financial monitoring and supervision.
A turnaround in service delivery is urgently needed as proved only recently by the violence directed at foreigners, not to mention the uprising in Khutsong last year. The IFP therefore urges the National Treasury to extend and implement this initiative through all tiers of government as quickly as possible so that the effectiveness of proper supervision and monitoring is felt where it is needed most by the public.