AUDITOR-GENERAL OF SOUTH AFRICA’S CLARIFICATION

(Democratic Alliance’s request for an investigation into the “use of state resources by the Gupta family”)

PRETORIA - The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) can confirm that the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Member of Parliament (MP) Dianne Kohler Barnard had, on 2 May 2012, requested the AGSA to conduct an investigation into what she termed “the use of state resources by Gupta family”. read more...

PRETORIA – The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) can confirm that 464 new laptop computers valued at R5,1 million were stolen from its Pretoria headquarters.

In the past three months the AGSA has experienced a series of break-ins at its offices in the North West, Mpumalanga and Gauteng where valuable assets including computers were stolen. read more...

Auditor-General calls on Eastern Cape provincial leadership to take full ownership of the internal control environment as the province’s audit outcomes stagnate

BHISHO – The Eastern Cape government should without delay implement and rigorously enforce action plans to arrest the tide which is currently sweeping the province further away from the goal of achieving clean administration by 2014.

Auditor-General pleased by Northern Cape Acting Premier’s pronouncement on clean governance, but calls for provincial government leadership to immediately increase momentum to eliminate remaining administrative hurdles

KIMBERLEY – Auditor-General (AG) Terence Nombembe has welcomed as pleasing, the recent pronouncement by Northern Cape’s Acting Premier Grizelda Cjiekella that her provincial government has developed a strategy aimed at drastically improving audit outcomes to meet the government’s fast-approaching Clean Audit 2014 deadline.

NELSPRUIT – The Mpumalanga Office of the Premier is amongst the provincial auditees that improved its audit results to take the lead in the province’s drive towards total clean administration.

POLOKWANE – The Limpopo provincial leadership must immediately develop and implement turnaround strategies to arrest the current situation which shows the provincial government moving further away from the desired clean audit outcomes, Auditor-General Terence Nombembe cautioned today.

PIETERMARITZBURG – The KwaZulu-Natal provincial government is on the verge of immediately eliminating its remaining administrative hurdles that caused the province to stumble and register slightly regressed audit outcomes in 2011-12 compared to its impressive record last year.

Gauteng public entities implement internal governance controls to register improved audit results, while the province’s overall outcomes regress

JOHANNESBURG – With the exception of seven public entities that stringently implemented remedial administrative plans to achieve clean audits, the overall 2011-12 audit results for Gauteng have regressed, including those of the Gauteng Office of the Premier and the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, Auditor-General (AG) Terence Nombembe announced today.

AG buoyed by government’s recent pronouncements that firm measures will be put in place to strengthen public sector governance

Government’s recent pronouncements, in particular the public service administrative initiatives linked to the National Development Plan, are positive and welcomed measures that are likely to bolster public sector governance considerably when they are implemented, Auditor-General (AG) Terence Nombembe said today.

Six new municipalities have joined the ranks of municipalities with clean audits this year, bringing the total to 13 (5%), said Auditor-General Terence Nombembe.  These municipalities are in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape. None of the municipalities in the Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, Northern Cape or North West received clean audit reports.

KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) municipalities made significant strides towards clean audits during the 2010-11 financial year, moving from no clean audits in the previous financial year to five clean audits this year.  The five municipalities with clean audits are Umzinyathi District Municipality, eMadlangeni Local Municipality, Richmond Local Municipality, Umdoni Local Municipality and Umtshezi Local Municipality.

The Mpumalanga Province received four clean audits in the 2010-11 local government audit results – the highest percentage of clean audits in the country for this period. Auditor-General Terence Nombembe attributed the improvement to strong internal controls and management’s implementation of the previous year’s action plans. “With the right leadership focus, determination and commitment, it is possible for the province to attain even more clean audits, but most importantly, to eradicate disclaimers,” he said.

Apart from one dormant entity in the Free State, no municipality or entity received a clean audit in the 2010-11 financial year, revealed the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA). However, the 23% of municipalities and entities who received unqualified audit opinions are closer to clean audits. Included in the unqualified opinions are all the district municipalities, the Nketoana Local Municipality and some public entities.

Two municipalities in Limpopo managed to achieve clean audits in the 2010-11 financial year, with the Waterberg District Municipality joining Fetakgomo in celebrating this achievement. While about 12% of the municipalities received unqualified audit opinions with findings, 82% received qualified, disclaimed or adverse opinions or did not submit financial statements for auditing. 

The audit outcomes of the Eastern Cape local government revealed minimal improvement and general slow progress towards unqualified opinions (with findings or concerns), with the province showing an overall improvement in four of the audit outcomes.

Eight of the 21 municipalities received an unqualified opinion (with findings or concerns), with 59% of the municipalities receiving either qualified or disclaimed opinions. Of the nine (9) municipalities that submitted financial statements late for audit, eight had their audits completed subsequent to 31 January 2012 and  were all in the qualified or disclaimer categories.

For the second consecutive year none of the 24 municipalities and four municipal entities in the province received a clean audit. Two municipalities (8%) and one entity (25%) received unqualified audit opinions with findings, while 29% of the municipalities and entities received either qualified or disclaimed/adverse audit opinions. These results do not reflect the complete picture, as the outcomes of 15 municipalities (63%) and two entities (50%) are not included in this analysis due to the late or non-submission of financial statements.

Local government’s progress towards clean audits in Gauteng had a setback, with five of the municipal entities that had achieved clean audits at the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council having regressed to unqualified audit opinions, leaving only two municipal entities with clean audit status in 2011. Also noteworthy is the elimination of the disclaimers of audit opinion that were received in the previous year at the Tshwane Metropolitan Council.  

The Swartland Municipality and the West Coast District Municipality attained clean audits in the current year, due to the sustained efforts of the municipal leadership to effectively monitor the implementation of a credible action plan to address past audit findings. The majority (73%) of other Western Cape’s municipal audit outcomes for 2010-11 were characterised by stagnation at the level of unqualified audit opinions, while 9% were still qualified and 12% did not submit financial statements in time for audit purposes.

....................
The 2010-11 audit outcomes of national and provincial departments and public entities show a combination of improvement, stagnation and regression as a reflection of the tone set by the national and provincial leadership

....................
“Setting the right tone and playing an active role in governance, and interaction with oversight structures is a pivotal step on the part of leadership towards improvement in the audit outcomes of national and provincial departments as well as public entities”.

These were the words of the Auditor-General (AG), Terence Nombembe today on his release of the 2010-11 general reports on the national and provincial audit outcomes of government. 

PRETORIA – The office of the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) has released its report on the performance audit of the infrastructure delivery process at the provincial departments of Education and Health in Parliament.

CAPE TOWN – Deputy Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu today presented Parliament with yet another set of positive annual results for the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) for the period 2010-11.

BLOEMFONTEIN – Auditor-General Terence Nombembe today released the 2009-10 provincial general report on local government and indicated that the audit outcomes of municipalities and municipal entities in the province for the 2009-10 financial year showed a steady reduction in audit qualifications.

JOHANNESBURG - Auditor-General (AG) Terence Nombembe today released his 2009-10 provincial general report which shows that the audit results of Gauteng municipalities have remained relatively static with a high concentration of unqualified financial audit opinions, while municipal entities have registered a significant improvement towards clean audits.

POLOKWANE – Auditor-General (AG) Terence Nombembe today released Limpopo’s improved local government audit results, which included the province’s first clean municipal audit.

NELSPRUIT – Mpumalanga has generally produced improved audit results for the 2009-10 financial year, Auditor-General (AG) Terence Nombembe announced today.

However, the AG was quick to urge provincial leadership to increase their efforts to improve their internal control systems in the drive towards the ideal of clean audit reports.

KIMBERLEY – The Auditor-General (AG), Terence Nombembe, has noted with concern that only 15 of the 32 Northern Cape municipalities had submitted their financial statements for auditing in accordance with the legislated time frames. The province is one of only two provinces that did not submit financial statements for more than 50% of their portfolio of municipalities for audit on time. This has adverse implications for the timely exercise of oversight by those charged with governance and may defer the opportunity for accelerated movement towards achievement of clean administration, the AG cautioned.

PRETORIA – With only two years left for the government’s drive towards clean audits in all its spheres, Auditor-General Terence Nombembe today cautioned that for Operation Clean Audit 2014 to succeed, South Africa’s mayors need to lead the movement towards the clean administration of their municipalities.

MAFIKENG – Auditor-General (AG) Terence Nombembe today released his 2009-10 provincial general report on local government which shows that the audit results of the North West municipalities have regressed further.

CAPE TOWN - Auditor-General (AG) Terence Nombembe today released his 2009-10 provincial general report on local government which shows that the audit results of most Western Cape municipalities have remained static, while municipal entities have registered a significant improvement towards clean audits.