It is possible to turn around our metros with the right people in place, citizens' consistent engagement and a focus on contract and project management, Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke and Songezo Zibi, chairperson of parliament's public spending watchdog, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, assured The Gathering.

"We've got to start by worrying about the quality of people who take on significant roles in council... This is not undoable. It is about an active interest, not only in electing people, but driving conversation - and proper engagement with the information that's available," said Maluleke in a call to citizens to be active in tracking their council's performance.

Or, as Zibi put it: "If we focus on what will make a difference, it will be possible to turn around our metros - if you have the right people at the administrative and political level."

Earlier, Zibi told The Gathering that municipal traffic chiefs and their management team could not tell the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) why traffic fines were not collected. In Ekurhuleni R2.7-billion in fines were written off, and around R1-billion in Tshwane. This information is in the notes to the municipalities' financial statements, which the traffic managers clearly had not read.

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"The quality of the politician who is in council matters. If we don't get that right, we will continue to hope and hope... and not get it right," said Zibi.

With reference to Johannesburg, he said, when people who did not qualify to...