Why was the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality in such a hurry to write off R23bn in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure before it had properly established what the money was spent on?
That is the question that should now be asked.
There is an obvious reason for the urgency.
The metro is under intense financial pressure, with National Treasury having temporarily withheld its equitable-share allocation amid concerns about its financial management.
The city has also been under pressure to bring its staggering UIFWE bill under control.
But those explanations only take us so far in understanding this issue.
If the objective was to clean up the municipality’s books, there was a straightforward way to do it.
Investigate the expenditure, establish who was responsible, determine what could be recovered, pursue those recoveries and then write off whatever was genuinely irrecoverable.
It is not that complicated. But this is where the whole thing starts to look extraordinary.
The municipality was prepared to ask councillors to write off more than R23bn without first having individual reports to examine the expenditure.
The DA and ACDP raised precisely this concern at a municipal public accounts committee meeting earlier this month.
They asked for the supporting information to establish what the money had actually been spent on and whether the municipality had received value for it.
There is no controversy in doing so. It is their job.
National Treasury has now effectively stopped the process in its tracks, warning that the metro cannot simply conclude that all UIFWE incurred before June 30 2021 has prescribed.
Each item must be assessed on its own facts.
More seriously, Treasury warned that any Mpac or council decision based on the current process would be unlawful and could expose responsible officials and councillors to misconduct proceedings.
But was the city trying to comply with Treasury pressure and get its financial house in order?
Or was there another motivation behind trying to clear such an enormous amount from the city’s books?
We do not know. That is precisely why the process needed to be slower, more transparent and more rigorous, not faster.
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