A MEETING OF THE MINDS BETWEEN FINANCE AND ENGINEERING

However, a major compounding factor within the municipal space is ineffective communication between finance and engineering – assuming that the required professional competencies are in place – when it comes to planning, budgeting, and executing priority infrastructure projects.

Municipal engineers, technologists and technicians should all be registered or in the process of registering with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) and adhere to ECSA’s strict code of professional conduct. The same should be the case in the financial arena administered by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), with members either registered as a Chartered Accountant (CA), Associate General Accountant (AGA) or Accounting Technician (AT), depending on their experience and responsibilities.

To register with either body, candidates must demonstrate a high level of competency and meet stringent admission criteria. They will also be held accountable for professional misconduct and potential deregistration, barring them from the profession.

A two-way street

You wouldn’t want to be a passenger in an aircraft flown by non-certified pilots. So, why should it be any different when it comes to engineering and financial personnel responsible for implementing and administering the framework for water, sanitation, electrical and transportation services?

It’s a two-way street when it comes to service delivery. Where registered engineering professionals are thin on the ground within municipalities, it’s challenging to implement approved municipal budgets. However, even where the capacity exists, implementation boils down to funding availability and disciplined fiscal expenditure.

However, as we’ve seen from the latest 2021-22 Auditor-General South Africa (AG) consolidated general report on local government audit outcomes, there are too many municipalities falling short of the mark. This is underscored by the fact that only 38 out of 257 municipalities received a clean audit. Staggeringly, fruitless and wasteful expenditure alone amounted to some R4.74 billion, while irregular expenditure totalled some R30.34 billion. On top of this, 220 municipalities spent around R1.61 billion on consultants to assist with financial reporting – more than 53% because the skills did not exist in-house.

Prevention is better than cure

To correct these and other serous discrepancies going forward, one of the measures put in place by the AG is a material irregularity process. This puts financial leaders in the hot seat when it comes to compliance in the future where they’ve fallen short of the audit requirements. The same applies to municipal managers where audited infrastructure, like water and wastewater treatment works, are not performing to standard.

Some degree of municipal coalition government instability is a factor, but as the AG emphasises, “When political transition occurs, the administrative functions must continue to fulfil their duties.” The AG also noted, “Investing in preventative controls to address the causes of infrastructure project failures is more effective than dealing with the consequences of such failures…”

Collaboration

So that means more money needs to be spent on maintenance to minimise areas like technical non-revenue water losses due to leaks. In turn, that requires adequate funding, chiefly derived from the efficient collection of revenues paid for municipal services rendered. Without best practice financial management and controls, effective infrastructure delivery will be hampered in practice. And without competent engineers, no meaningful implementation is possible.

The next generation

Going forward, IMESA is close to concluding a memorandum of understanding with the South African Local Government Association (Salga) to drive programmes that will help with municipal capacity building.

However, we need to look much further down the road than this by creating a pipeline of aspiring young minds that will see a career in the municipal engineering space as a sought-after civil service. Within IMESA, this initiative is being spearheaded by our Young Professional Engineers (YPE) forum. They will focus on high schools, motivating the importance of STEM education, and speaking about their own developmental experiences. It’s okay if some of these learners become CAs in the process. Either way, social infrastructure is for the people and future generations.