Recent hearings before Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts highlighted Johannesburg’s mixed progress on audit issues. The City of Johannesburg reported reductions in irregular expenditure but faced questions over rising audit findings and infrastructure shortfalls. Officials and the Auditor-General presented differing views on the metro’s governance reforms.
Johannesburg spent just 1% of its budget on infrastructure maintenance against an 8% benchmark and met only 36% of its infrastructure targets. The city also recorded R8.5 billion in water and electricity losses along with R7.6 billion in irregular expenditure under investigation.
The Auditor-General reported 527 findings for 2024/25, an increase from 472 the prior year. City officials stated they had resolved 82% of the previous year’s findings and reduced the UIFWE balance by 43.8% to R13.3 billion over five years.
Non-revenue water fell from 46.18% to 44.79% and City Power losses dropped from 40% to 28.4%. The city has an R8.43 billion capital programme across 354 projects and faces 34 disciplinary cases plus six criminal matters.
After the hearings the City accepted the findings and said its turnaround programme would focus on root causes including revenue collection and consequence management.