ASSESSING MUNICIPAL PERFORMANCE- THE RELEVANCE OF AUDIT REPORTS Veliswa Notshikila Regensys Business School,Johannesburg, South Africa.

Municipalities are the most importa nt service delivery level of the South African government because performance at this level of government is closely scrutinised since it impacts the citizens directly. This paper reports on an exploratory study to determine the extent to which the externa l audit reports reflect a South African municipality’s performance. A qualitative approach using semi -structured interviews was employed to gather information from senior management of the municipality. It became evident that challenges emanate from a lack of integrated systems, proper documentation to reflect the performance of municipalities, and communication with external auditors. The aforementioned seems to be the primary reason for differences in opinions between the internal and external audits. It is recommended that improvements be instituted around the systems, policies and procedures, training of management employees, relationship with auditors, performance management for all employees and sharing of excellence across municipalities.