THE call by KwaZulu-Natal public works and infrastructure MEC Marten Mayor and his Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs counterpart Thulasizwe Buthelezi to phase out services of “unnecessary” consultants should only be applauded once it is delivered.
Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) chief executive officer Wayne Duvenage said such a call had been previously made but came to nothing in some municipalities while others acted on it.
He said it was still unclear whether or not Mayor and Buthelezi were setting the example by calling for a reduction of consultants in their departments.
“They are saying the right thing but they have to implement it. They are on the right track and since they made this call, they must lead the way,” said Duvenage.
Duvenage said not all consultants used by the state were unnecessary, because they provided services not available in the government.
He said it was “crazy” that some consultants were brought in to do jobs that should be done by permanent employees who were getting paid.
“This is probably creating jobs for friends,” he said.
He said consultants were brought in because of incompetence and lack of skill among government officials, but “some of those consultants are just getting money through set networks.
“They should reduce the use of consultants and start providing the services and force the municipalities to upskill their staff.”
When contacted to establish if the phasing out of consultants was the decision of the provincial government, both Premier Thami Ntuli and Finance MEC Francois Rodgers declined to comment.
According to Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke’s consolidated general report on local government audit outcomes released on October 8, provincial municipalities spent R241 million in the 2022-23 financial year on consultants, which was a reduction from the previous year’s R304 million.
The report revealed that at least 22 of the 43 provincial municipalities had not used consultants effectively and failed to justify their use.
This was mainly because of inefficiencies in the municipalities, such as poorly managing projects and appointing consultants without conducting a needs analysis.
“In some instances, consultants did not transfer skills to finance officials.
“Umvoti Local Municipality appointed a tax consultant when it already had an experienced person appointed for the function, and we issued a material irregularity notification on this matter to the accounting officer,” said the report.
Addressing the South African Local Government Association (Salga) meeting on August 17, Buthelezi revealed that 12 municipalities had last year paid R43 million to consultants to do internal audits, despite having permanent employees for the job.
He said despite having hired consultants for internal auditing, the municipality still received an unqualified opinion from Maluleke.
Mayer told the media late last month that the money spent on “unnecessary consultants” had gone to waste as the outsourced work could be done internally.
However, both Buthelezi and Mayer did not respond to a request to clarify how they were going to ensure the phasing out of consultants deemed unnecessary was successful.