Purple Tod Consulting

The following series of articles focus on the work of the Auditor-General. Various reports have been abridged with a general focus on South African Education/Schooling.

It is simply mind boggling that there is simply little to no consequence to the horrified findings in these various reports. In fact we ought to have a "Zondo Commission" on the Auditor-General's Reports since 2000. The amount of money unaccounted for, going missing, misdirected all mentioned in these qualified and unqualified reports with findings is mind blowingly staggering. These qualified and unqualified reports with findings opens the flood gates for corruption, theft, misappropriation and fraud.

The South African government and its state organs from investigative to judiciary (law enforcement) agencies have failed us.

"Sies man!"

Role of the AGSA in the reporting process

The role of the AGSA is to reflect on the audit work performed to assist the portfolio committee in its oversight role of assessing the performance of the entities in its portfolio, taking into consideration the objective of the committee to produce a budgetary review and recommendations report.

21 November 2018

Auditor-general reports an overall deterioration in the audit results of national and provincial government departments and their entities

CAPE TOWN –

1. The auditor-general (AG), Kimi Makwetu, today announced national and provincial audit results that show an overall decline over the past financial year.
2. Releasing his general report for 2017-18, Makwetu said that overall, the audit outcomes regressed – at both departments and public entities.
3. He said while the audit results of 43 auditees improved, those were overshadowed by the 73 that regressed from the previous year.
4. The AG further noted that over the past four years since 2014-15, there has been a similar pattern with more audit outcomes regressing than improving.
5. He attributed this largely to those charged with governance being slow to implement, or totally disregarding, audit recommendations made by his office.

Unheeded previous years’ audit recommendations impact audit outcomes

• Makwetu said that for years his office had reported weaknesses in internal controls and the risks that needed attention at national and provincial governments by providing root causes for audit findings and recommendations to remedy these underlying causes.
• Equally, the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) had consistently lamented a lack of decisive leadership to address the lack of accountability by ensuring consequences against those who flouted basic processes that hampered effective governance.
• “As our latest report reveals, various role players have been slow in implementing and, in certain instances, even blatantly disregarded our recommendations.
• As a result, there is limited improvement in accountability for government spending and the risks we have been highlighting for a number of years are starting to materialise.
• “In our previous reports, we said that the slow response by management to our messages was the main root cause of poor audit outcomes, but our experience over the past year is that management at 28% of the auditees with poor audit outcomes are just not responding at all,” the AG disclosed.

Collective effort towards wholesale clean administration and accountability

“Those who have received and maintained positive audit results continue to demonstrate that wholesale clean administration and accountability in the public sector are possible, if only we can focus on doing the basics right. We remain committed to working tirelessly (within our mandate) and with all those charged with governance and oversight to strengthen financial and performance management in national and provincial government,” said Makwetu.