Assessing compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act in the Blouberg Municipality, Limpopo Province

Abstract

Non-compliance with pieces of legislation may be considered the root cause of qualified, disclaimer and adverse opinions that continue to emerge in South African municipalities. One of those pieces of legislation is the Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003. The study has assessed compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act at Blouberg Municipality in terms of public consultation and management of the municipal budget. The researcher has used qualitative method in this study. Public consultation plays a significant role in a budgetory process of the Municipality, Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003 requires Municipalities to take public views into consideration when compiling a budget. The objectives of local government are often defeated by maladministration because of non- compliance with legislations such as Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003. This can be supported by audit outcomes (2011-11) from the office of the Auditor General. The report states that during the year 2010-11 forty Municipalities had not been audited because they did not submit annual financial statement on time which is a requirement in terms of the MFMA. The objective of the study is to assess compliance with the Municipal Finance Management in the Blouberg Municipality in terms of Public consultation and the competency of the Municipal officials to implement MFMA. During the study, it was found that Blouberg Municipality has embarked on Municipal Finance Management training in order to capacitate its officials to be able to implement MFMA and little has been done in terms of public consultation as members of the public were not aware of their responsibilities in terms of the Municipal budget. It is recommended that the Municipality should review its communication strategy to ensure maximum participation of the public and to create a conducive environment for public participation.