Michael Sakuneka

Michael Sakuneka

In an attempt to end the financial crisis at the greater Tzaneen municipality, new financial controls have been put in place.

Authorities hope the moves will help restore good financial practice and save the Limpopo municipality money.

Recently, the municipality found itself in serious financial problems which resulted in millions of rands in bank overdrafts.

The plans now include a financial recovery programme that will be spearheaded by a recovery committee comprising managers and heads of departments who will be further divided into smaller task teams.

According to Tzaneen municipal spokesman, Solly Mokhashoa, each task team will have to submit reports to a central committee every Monday.

Mokhashoa said although there was no time-frame for the recovery plan to be concluded, the teams will have to work fast to help the municipality identify problems which led to its financial crisis.

He said: "During the past few months while the finances were bad, we managed to collect between R19million and R20million in revenue every month.

"But in the last month, we boosted that to R26million. But that figure needs to be increased even further," Mokhashoa said.

Greater Tzaneen municipal mayor, Othaniel Mushwana, said the municipality found itself in a financial mess because it moved from its old accounting system to a new one, which had taken too long to understand.

The municipality's financial crisis started early this year when it discovered that it had an overdraft of about R3million.

Meanwhile, other sources in the greater Tzaneen municipality indicated that the financial situation was the result of a lack of accountability by certain of its managers.