Unacceptable Number Seventeen

My radio is tuned to Cape Talk 567, and yesterday I heard the presenter Kienno Kammies raving about the number seventeen. What could it be?

Seventeen magazine? Seventeen millimetres of rain? Seventeen puppies? Goodness knows!

But, his voice was agitated and he was speaking way too fast to be ranting about a girly magazine or wet puppies.

The revelation came quickly and angrily. Only 17 municipalities in South Africa have a clean audit for the financial year 2011-2012. This means that only 17 out of a whopping 278 municipalities have clean audits.

When you start crunching the numbers this means that only 6% of municipalities can do their math.

Business Day online reports that there was a total of R9.82 billion of irregular expenditure.  According to News24 it costs about R54 000 to build a house. This means that more than 180 000 houses could have been built with this money. Would that not make some dent in the housing deficit in this country?

Each time someone in a municipality flies first class instead of economy, they deny someone half-a-house.  Every rand spent, is a door, a window or a wall in someone’s house. Every rand unnecessarily spent is like spitting in the face of poverty.

But do we play this game with ourselves to make sense of this senseless spending of taxpayers’ money?

My dad always says, “If you don’t want to spend money, stay out of the shops.”

Those are wise words from my father, and they are true. When I have more money some Jolly Jammers and cappuccino sachets seem to sneak into my basket. When I have less money, stepping foot in a shop depresses me and therefore spend less.

Perhaps this is what should be happening. Give them less pocket money to buy those luxuries with. Every rand spent unnecessarily will be a rand deducted in the next financial year, from their salaries.

And, considering that salaries for auditors are advertised between R499 000 and R680 000, perhaps even higher, I’m sure they can afford to lose a few hundred thousand.

Should we applaud the 17 who managed to make the cut? 

No! They were just doing their job.