Mayor Hill-Lewis receives Cape Town’s clean audit award for 2021/22

2 June 2023

'So many people still live in poverty in South Africa. Our purpose in Cape Town is to lift people out of poverty over time, and a 'clean audit' is one important enabling step in fulfilling this purpose. The poor are left worse off when the public services on which they depend collapse because public money is badly spent or stolen. Building sound institutions in government, with transparency and integrity in spending, leads to a government that can really deliver - where things get slowly better over time, where infrastructure can be built, and where the social safety net can be expanded. All of these things can only be built on a firm foundation of good governance. So we are very pleased to receive this award from the Auditor General today.

‘Not only is Cape Town making unrivalled investments in infrastructure and service delivery, we are also doing so on the basis of clean governance. Residents can have confidence that our R70bn budget for 2023/24 will be spent on actual service delivery, including our record R11bn infrastructure budget. A full 74% of this year’s infrastructure budget will go to services directly benefiting lower income households in Cape Town. My thanks goes to all the officials who take pride in ensuring our City operates with integrity and excellence,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.

In the AG’s consolidated report for 21/22, the City is praised for ‘implementing a proactive system of accountability with a zero-tolerance culture towards noncompliance’.

Hill-Lewis said his administration is currently driving an ongoing culture change campaign inside the City administration to cut red tape, as part of our aim to be the easiest place to do business in Africa.

Cape Town has received unqualified audits every year since 2006. The City has also consistently been voted the most trusted metro in the country according to the Consulta Citizen Satisfaction Index.

Issued by Media Office, City of Cape Town, 2 June 2022