The Great Kei municipality’s clean audit outcome is set to come under scrutiny by parliament’s finance watchdog after a whistleblower alleged the Eastern Cape municipality manipulated information submitted to the auditor-general (AG).
The municipality secured a clean audit for the 2024/2025 financial year after years of failing to achieve the milestone, but a senior municipal official has now claimed the outcome “is a sham” obtained through “fraudulent and fabricated information and documentation” allegedly provided during the audit process.
The whistleblower’s correspondence to parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), seen by the Dispatch, alleges the municipality submitted misleading information to secure a favourable audit outcome.
While the municipality has denied wrongdoing, Scopa chair and Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi confirmed on Monday that the committee had received the complaint and would investigate the matter.
Great Kei is among several Eastern Cape municipalities that obtained an unqualified audit opinion with no findings — commonly known as a clean audit — in the 2024/2025 financial year.
The municipality had maintained unqualified audit opinions for four consecutive years up to the 2023/2024 financial year.
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