Comparative Analysis of Municipalities that have Consistently Achieved Clean Audits: The Case of West Coast District Municipality, Overstrand Local Municipality and Okhahlamba Local Municipality

The Auditor-General (South Africa) (2024) in her consolidated report of the state of audit outcomes of municipalities expressed a concern about the decreasing number of the quality audit outcomes. In particular, the number of municipalities that achieve clean audit outcomes has over the years decreased which is an indication that some, if not most of South African municipalities, are regressing in terms of governance, performance (service delivery) and financial management. A clean audit opinion is by no means an ultimate reflection that there is effective service delivery. However, it does present the municipality as a transparent organization that is able to function effectively and efficiently in fulfilling its constitutional mandate. It therefore becomes imperative to establish how other municipalities are able to achieve clean audits especially those that have done it consistently over the longer period of time. It is for this reason that the study is a comparative analysis of municipalities that consistently achieved clean audits with a view to learn how they have managed to obtain these clean audit opinions.