Municipal Financial Management & Audit Compliance

CIBA · CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Municipal Financial Management & Audit Compliance.

Municipal finance & audit complianceSelf-paced · ±20 hours10 CPD unitsInteractive

Turn the Auditor-General’s findings into a plan you can act on.

Year after year the Auditor-General’s consolidated report tells the same story: qualified, adverse and disclaimed opinions, billions in irregular and fruitless expenditure, and the same findings repeating because corrective action was never taken. The challenge facing most municipalities is not primarily technical. It is about discipline, accountability and leadership.

This course gives municipal officials and the professionals who support them a clear, practical command of the rules that govern public money: the PFMA and MFMA, GRAP, the supply chain management regulations, and the oversight structures meant to keep it all honest. It is built around the AGSA’s own 2024-25 findings and ends with a concrete roadmap from a qualified opinion to a clean audit.

Who it is for

✔ Municipal CFOs, finance staff, accountants and interns working under the MFMA.
✔ Supply chain, asset and revenue officials whose daily work shapes the audit outcome.
✔ Internal auditors, audit committee members and MPAC councillors exercising oversight.
✔ BAP(SA), CBAP and other CIBA members and finance professionals supporting local government.

What you will be able to do

✔ Trace the municipal accountability chain and explain the AGSA’s mandate and the three types of audit it conducts.
✔ Apply the core MFMA duties (Sections 60, 62, 65 and 79) to the roles of the accounting officer and the CFO.
✔ Distinguish unauthorised, irregular, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and apply the correct disclosure, investigation and recovery steps for each.
✔ Read a set of GRAP-compliant annual financial statements, explain the four audit opinions, and identify what drives a qualification.
✔ Run compliant supply chain, revenue, asset (GRAP 17) and debt (GRAP 104) processes.
✔ Build a root-cause-based audit action plan that moves a municipality toward a clean audit.

A clean audit is not an accounting trick. It is evidence that public money is being managed well enough to deliver water, roads and refuse services to the people a municipality exists to serve.

What is inside

✔ Twenty modules covering the full municipal financial management and audit cycle, from constitutional accountability to a practical clean-audit roadmap.
✔ Interactive knowledge checks in every module: click an answer and see at once whether it is right, and why.
✔ A companion bank of 200 assessment questions, ten per module, each with four options and a memorandum.
✔ Grounded in South African law and practice: the Constitution, the PFMA, the MFMA, GRAP and the AGSA 2024-25 consolidated findings.
✔ Self-paced and online, around 20 hours, worth 10 CPD units, with a completion certificate.

Course contents

Part A · Foundations and the legal framework

#	Module	Time
1	Introduction to public sector accountability	1 hour
2	Understanding the PFMA — overview & scope	1 hour
3	MFMA fundamentals for municipalities	1 hour
4	Roles & responsibilities of accounting officers	1 hour

Part B · Financial statements, opinions and problem expenditure

#	Module	Time
5	Annual financial statements & GRAP compliance	1 hour
6	Qualified audit opinions — causes & prevention	1 hour
7	Fruitless & wasteful expenditure — definition & law	1 hour
8	Irregular expenditure — definition, disclosure & action	1 hour

Part C · Procurement, revenue, assets and debt

#	Module	Time
9	Supply chain management & procurement compliance	1 hour
10	Revenue management & billing systems	1 hour
11	Asset management & GRAP 17	1 hour
12	Debt management & GRAP 104 — financial instruments	1 hour

Part D · Standards, budgeting, controls and performance

#	Module	Time
13	IFRS vs GRAP — key differences for municipalities	1 hour
14	Budgeting, virement & unauthorised expenditure	1 hour
15	Internal controls & the AGSA control framework	1 hour
16	Performance reporting & SMART targets	1 hour

Part E · Oversight, accountability and the clean-audit journey

#	Module	Time
17	Audit committees & internal audit function	1 hour
18	Consequence management & anti-corruption	1 hour
19	Reporting to oversight bodies — councils & legislatures	1 hour
20	Building a clean audit action plan	1 hour

Total: approximately 20 hours · 10 CPD units.

How it works

✔ Self-paced and online on the CIBA learning platform.
✔ One or two modules a sitting works well; spacing them over a few weeks helps the material stick.
✔ An interactive knowledge check runs throughout each module.
✔ Grounded in South African practice and the latest AGSA consolidated findings.
✔ Earns 10 CPD units and a completion certificate.

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★★★★★

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