South African municipalities recorded irregular expenditure amounting to R25.2bn in the 2017/2018 financial year.

This is according to auditor-general Kimi Makwetu who released the audit findings report of 257 municipalities.

Although irregular expenditure had decreased from the previous year's R29.7bn, Makwetu said the 2017/2018 financial year recorded the highest level of noncompliance with key governance laws since 2011/2012.

Only 18 municipalities received clean audits after they produced quality financial statements and performance reports.

"Not only did the unqualified opinions on the financial statements decrease from 61% to only 51% but the quality of the financial statements provided to us for auditing was even worse than in the previous year," Makwetu said.

He added: "Only 19% of the municipalities could give us financial statements without material misstatements."

Makwetu said that material noncompliance with key legislation was now at 92% of the municipalities, up from 85% in the previous year.