PORT ELIZABETH - IS NELSON MANDELA BAY METRO REALLY GUILTY OF SO MUCH WASTEFUL EXPENDITURE?

The winner of the hotly contested Nelson Mandela Bay metro in the upcoming local government elections‚ will inherit a financial headache.

Despite the African National Congress (ANC) sending football's Danny Jordaan to the metro in an attempt save the municipality from opposition hands‚ it might take more than a famous homeboy to turn things around on the money front.

The metro alone accounted for 42% of the R1‚34-billion of fruitless and wasteful expenditure found across all municipalities‚ Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu said when he released his 2014/15 report on municipalities in Pretoria on Wednesday.

Nelson Mandela Bay's fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounted to R423-million in 2014/15‚ up from R11-million the previous year.

The metro - incorporating Port Elizabeth‚ Uitenhage and Despatch - was also the second highest contributor to the report's total figure of R14‚75-billion for irregular expenditure after Rustenburg in the North West (R3 billion). The Nelson Mandela metro's irregular expenditure totalled R1.3-billion.

Makwetu named-and-shamed Nelson Mandela Bay to illustrate that few municipalities had contributed significantly to the otherwise positive report's bleak findings on fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

“How come you have these good outcomes when you have this massive level of fruitless and wasteful expenditure?

"I'm suggesting the number [for fruitless and wasteful expenditure] is big in that it's a billion. But the rest of the guys have got R9‚000 there‚ R12‚000 there‚ R20‚000 there of fruitless and wasteful expenditure‚ which is an acceptable figure in the context‚” he said.

The Economic Freedom Fighters and the Democratic Alliance have seen the crisis in this coastal city and have vowed to take it from the ANC in August.

VIA - timeslive.co.za