In 1944, the German Army began a counter-offensive against the Allies in the Ardennes which came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge as the German armoured thrusts penetrated deep into American lines.  Soon an American contingent of about 11,000 troops from the 101^st Airborne Division who had been hastily pushed forward were surrounded in Bastogne.  The besieging German officer asked them to surrender as their position was hopeless.  Gen. McAuliffe’s answer, “Nuts!”  became the stuff of legend particularly as they heroically held out against vastly superior forces for seven days until relieved.  Today the Americans are fighting another battle of the bulge and losing, but that’s a story for another time.

Fast forward to 2022.  Snake Island is a 17 Ha rocky island, 35 km off the south-eastern Ukrainian coast, and it was manned by a contingent of less than 50 Ukrainian soldiers.  It is an insignificant feature, but it effectively controls access to Ukraine’s last free seaport, Odessa.  On the first day of the ‘Special Operation’ as the Russians euphemistically call it, Snake Island was besieged by two Russian warships, one of which was the ill-fated 12,000 ton missile cruiser, Moskva, pride of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.  Via radio, Moskva demanded the garrison’s surrender.  Their response was a non-cryptic Cyrillic, ‘Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй’ (Russian warship, go fuck yourself!).  That bit of heroic repartee cost 13 Ukrainian lives in the ensuing bombardment before surrendering to the Russians.

Since then, Ukraine has got their own back in spades.  The Moskva was later sunk with the loss of many more lives that the Russians refuse to admit to or that it was even hit by Ukrainian missiles.  The Russian forces on the island have been under routine attack by the full range of Ukrainian long-range systems – missiles, Su-27 aircraft and drones – with devastating results.  5 smallish boats of under 100 tons, a tugboat of 1200 tons, 2 helicopters, a badly damaged 10,000 ton logistics ship, several missile defence systems, ammunition supplies and numerous deaths later, the Russians called it a day on 30 June.

Desperate to save face for their embarrassing failure and determined to continue the pretence of holding the moral high ground, a Bloodimir Putin stooge announced that their withdrawal was a gesture of goodwill!

Ja, right.

In the old days, OMO washing powder advertised that it makes ‘whites bright’.  Definitely, that had to go and they’ve replaced it with some rather anaemic slogans.  Two-fisted punch was obviously a non-starter.  Not only was it already taken, it would make the laundry room feel like an unsafe space and the TV adverts would have to carry a trigger warning.  So, we are left with The Power of 10 Hands and Tough Stain Removal.

No matter what your preference is, there seems to be no detergent, mechanism or intervention that can deliver clean Municipal Audit Outcomes.  We are into the 29^th year of the ‘New and Improved South Africa’ and the overall municipal finances are a disaster area.  Granted a Municipality has a very difficult job but, of all its functions, the easiest is to financially account for what it did do irrespective of whether it’s failing its mandate.  Accounting is a mechanistic process.  There is no need to reconcile conflicting human and political interests, being creative with solutions to intractable problems, extracting income from recalcitrant or poverty-stricken ratepayers, planning and regulation, generating and realising a vision, etc.  Once the accounting system has been set up properly, it’s mainly a case of following the recipe. 

Last week saw the Auditor-General release her annual report on this cesspool.  Of the 257 Municipalities, 25% (Western Cape – 3%) had going-concern problems.  Even more frightening was that 75% could not provide quality financial statements.  The Western Cape achieved 22 (73%) unqualified audit outcomes while the rest of South Africa received only 19 (8.4%)!  25 Municipalities (Western Cape – 0) seemed to take the modern trend of the paperless office to the point that the Auditor-General could not even begin to make adverse findings and just disclaimed them.  We do not know if this lack of paperwork is wilful to obscure corruption or due to incompetence and slackness.  I suspect a combination.  Most disaffected whities would automatically blame corruption, but that is contradicted by the creditors books which run at an average of 275 days (excluding the WC – 63 days).  Normally deals involving corruption are sorted out fast.  Also, the debtors books, running at 220 days (excluding the WC – 49 days), indicate that the financial systems have all but collapsed.   In the Free State, the creditors and debtors books are running at eye-watering 483 and 563 days respectively and for the Northern Cape they are 527 and 167.  There are many other metrics but they all tell the same grim story, just from different angles – barring the Western Cape which stands out as a beacon, the financial systems of the municipalities are chaotic and dysfunctional and that they haven’t collapsed yet is a miracle.

But what is glaringly obvious is the lack of consequence management otherwise these problems would not persist year after year.  Maybe we do need some two-fisted punch after all.