By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero says his administration remains committed to strengthening internal controls, improving budget compliance and accelerating consequence management.
Morero and his administration appeared before Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on 9 June 2026.
He said the city received an unqualified audit opinion on its consolidated group annual financial statements for the 2024/25 financial year.
In the 2024/25 financial year, Joburg achieved an unqualified audit with findings for the 11th year in a row and recorded R3.69-billion in irregular expenditure, R2.38-billion in unauthorised expenditure, and R938-million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The Auditor-General’s Gauteng business unit leader, Fhumulani Rabonda, warned that nearly 80% of the City’s municipal entities were in the amber, and had been for several years, indicating that they had given “false assurances”.
“The reason we call it false assurance is that we cannot be comfortable with an environment that has credible financial statements that are published but they are not complying with the law, or their performance report has material misstatements,” explained Rabonda.
Key basic infrastructure entities like City Power, Johannesburg Water, Pikitup and Johannesburg Road Agency have been in the amber for more than 10 years, meaning that the Auditor-General has made material findings on their statements.
“Not all the issues of the dispute could be satisfactorily resolved for the period under audit,” Morero said, adding that management was developing a remedial action plan to address the root causes identified by the AG.
According to Morero, Johannesburg has reduced its accumulated unauthorised and irregular expenditure balance by 44%, from R23.7 billion to R13.3 billion during the 2024/25 financial year.
However, he admitted that new unauthorised expenditure remains stubbornly high at around R9bn annually.
“New irregular expenditure of about R3.7bn continues to be recognised,” Morero said, adding that investigations into a substantial portion of these expenditures are still underway.
Morero also said fruitless and wasteful expenditure rose sharply to R938 million in 2024/25, largely due to interest and penalty charges incurred by municipal entities.
The city’s group risk & assurance Executive Director, Sinaye Nxumalo, added that unauthorised expenditure currently stands at around R13.3 billion rand after adjustments linked to audit findings.
Nxumalo said the city had made progress in reducing historical irregular expenditure.
“Over the five-year period, the city has regularised R45 billion.”
City Manager Dr Floyd Brink accepted responsibility for the municipality’s qualified audit outcome, describing it as a serious setback that requires urgent intervention.
“One would not want to minimize the outcome of the Auditor General, but we do respect the Office of the Auditor General as well as the audit opinion that we have received. The 2024/2025 audit opinion was a mixed one.”
The AG called for the City to stabilise its senior management and fill critical vacancies, restore basic compliance controls, and enforce consequence management and compliance.
The city also outlined infrastructure funding plans, including about R5 billion in development finance commitments and a R4 billion reduced loan from Germany’s KfW.