Records can help mitigate audit opinions in municipalities. Since the dawn of democracy in SA, year in, year out, from Shauket Fakie to Terence Nombembe to the late Kimi Makwetu and the current incumbent, Tsakani Maluleke, the office of the auditor-general is always on record reporting on the perilous financial state in municipalities.

The sad part is that these municipalities are at the coalface of service delivery in SA and they are failing to deliver. One of the contributing factors is that when the auditor-general audits municipalities, one of the constraints it faces is that records are either not available or could not be retrieved...