UBIQUITY OF QUALIFIED AUDITS IN SOUTH AFRICAN MUNICIPALITIES: CASE OF CATEGORY B MUNICIPALITY IN THE FREE STATE PROVINCE

This article investigates the realities of oversight roles played by governance structures in a Category B municipality in the Free State Province, South Africa. Also, the article outlines the reasons for the failure of these structures to enforce accountability and consequence management. For instance, the two recent reports of the Auditor-General of 2015/16 and 2016/17, show that some municipalities have failed to implement the fundamental principles of public administration as enshrined in the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. This article adopted a qualitative research approach and used existing theoretical and empirical evidence to engage the discourse relating to aberrations of and measures designed for the achievement of clean audits. Emanating from the findings, this article concludes that to the extent that the balance between integrity and competence as well as political will has become an imperative for clean audits, some Category B municipalities in South Africa would forever remain defective. The article recommends that political will has to be solicited and encouraged as a matter of pressing priority in order to ensure that relevant governance structures are allowed the necessary scope to enforce accountability and consequence management that are attendant to clean audits. Keywords: Accountability, audits, Consequence management, governance structures, municipalities