The best run municipality in the Northern Cape

The Frances Baard District Municipality in the Northern Cape has received a clean audit for five consecutive years, making it the best-performing local government in the province.

This is according to the Auditor-General of South Africa’s (AGSA) assessment of the financial reporting of the country’s 257 municipalities for the 2023/24 financial year.

Only 25 of the municipalities that received a clean audit had also done so in the previous three years. The Ehlanzeni District Municipality also made it onto the list, with a streak of five years.

The municipality is the smallest of the province’s five districts, yet it comprises more than a quarter — 434,342 — of its total population, which stood at just over 1.4 million as of 2022.

Major towns include Kimberley, where the municipality is located, as well as Barkly West, Delportshoop, Hartswater, Jan Kempdorp, Pampierstad, Ritchie, and Warrenton.

Its main economic sectors are community services (28%), finance (22%), trade (15%), transport (12%), mining (10%), and agriculture (4%).

Despite this, agriculture is the most significant contributor to the economy in terms of employment.

The district comprises four local municipalities: Sol Plaatje, Phokwane, Dikgatlong, and Magareng.

Local municipalities are responsible for delivering direct services to communities, while district municipalities tend to handle cross-municipal functions such as infrastructure provision.

Despite receiving a clean audit, none of the local municipalities within it managed to achieve the same outcome.

There are five types of audit outcomes given by the AGSA. The best result is a clean one, which means that no misstatements can be found in an entity’s financial reporting.

This is followed by a financially unqualified outcome, which contains no material misstatements; however, issues have been raised regarding an entity’s reporting.

Ninety-nine municipalities received this type of audit outcome, including the Sol Plaatje Local Municipality.

If a municipality receives a qualified audit outcome, it means the AG has determined that its financial reporting contains material misstatements in specific amounts.

This was found to be true for 90 municipalities, including the Dikgatlong and Magareng local municipalities.

An adverse audit outcome means material misstatements have been found which are not confined to specific amounts, as was the case for six municipalities.

The final outcome is a disclaimer of audit opinion, meaning that the entity provided insufficient documentation to make an audit decision.

The Phokwane Local Municipality and ten others received disclaimed audit opinions.

Political composition

Regarding the political makeup of the municipality, the African National Congress holds a majority of the 29-seat council, with 15 seats.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) hold five seats, the Democratic Alliance (DA) four, the Patriotic Alliance (PA) and Freedom Front Plus (FF+) each have two, while the Patriotic Social Democratic Front (PSDF) has one.

The executive mayor is ANC representative Unondumisa Buda.

According to the AGSA, the municipality received a budget of R4.47 billion for the financial year.

Of this, the municipality generated R3.38 billion through taxes and levies, and R387.79 million was received through grants.

It also received R705.38 million in equitable share revenue, which is a portion of national tax revenue distributed among local governments.

Namakwa District Municipality

However, the Frances Baard DM was not the only local government in the province to make the list of 25 municipalities to receive consecutive clean audit opinions since 2019/20.

The Namakwa District Municipality, the largest in the province at 126,836 square kilometres, also achieved this feat.

Namakwa is located in the north-west of the province and is home to an estimated 148,935 people across six local governments.

These include the Hantam, Kamiesberg, Karoo Hoogland, Khai-Ma, Nama Khoi, and Richtersveld local municipalities.

However, similar to Frances Baard DM, none of its local governments achieved a clean audit for the 2023/24 financial year.

Hantam, Kamiesberg, Karoo Hoogland, Khai-Ma, and Richtersveld all received qualified opinions, while Nama Khoi received an unqualified opinion with findings.

Major towns include Calvinia, Pofadder, Springbok, and Sutherland, while its main economic sectors are mining, manufacturing, and renewable energy production.