I am a bit puzzled by the recent adverts by Ekurhuleni Municipality.  The advert is to be heard on most radio stations, quite often, and they emphasise how they received a clean audit on their accounts.  The ad says because they got a clean audit, they must be taken seriously and it shows that they are interested in corporate governance.  I must say that I would think that a clean audit is to be taken for granted.  I cannot believe that times are so tough that when a major Municipality gets a clean audit that they need to spend money on celebrating it – and I cannot really see what they achieved with spending the taxpayers’ money on these advertisements.  

Are we now to expect every Municipality that has had a clean audit to also now issue a radio advert that they too have had a clean audit?  I know that the jokers will say that there are not too many of those, and that is probably true, but I think it is a sad state of affairs when you have to say that your clean audit is a sign of your commitment to corporate governance.  A clean audit is a basic thing that anybody who is paying tax to that Municipality, via rates, would expect and it really should not need to be advertised.  To me it would be the same as Eskom running an advert that in the deals for the new power stations no bribes are included and that they have been thoroughly vetted to ensure that the contracts they have awarded are bribe-free.  It is what we expect, isn’t it?