Johannesburg - The audit outcomes of national and provincial government departments are slightly better for the year to March than in the previous year, but outgoing auditor-general Terence Nombembe reported persistent deficiencies relating to certain departments.
Among the red flag departments is Public Works, which is responsible for state buildings including the presidential rural compound, Nkandla. It notched up R874 million in irregular expenditure, R166.4m in unauthorised expenditure and R54.8m in fruitless and wasteful expenditure – more than R1.09 billion in total.
Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs notched up R648m in irregular expenditure, while the Safety And Security Sector Education and Training Authority notched up R122m in such spending.
Public Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu acknowledged that there had been no significant high-profile prosecutions for malpractice, but she pledged to lead the battle to make bureaucrats accountable for fiscal mismanagement on their watch. This was being done in terms of changes to public service legislation.
Sisulu noted that there had been a number of attempts to crack down on corruption, financial mismanagement and other deviations from government delivery mandates, but there had been “loopholes” in the legislation.
Calling the auditor-general’s office a paragon of virtue, she said she hoped the government as a whole could get to the point where such high standards “prevail everywhere”.
It was of great importance, she said, that the government’s proposed “school of governance” – where she hoped to tap into the skills of the retiring auditor-general – would instill in all public servants an ethos of good service. “We need to create an ethos of accountability,” she said.
While the auditor-general’s office deflected political questions about possible irregularities relating to President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla compound and other public works projects that appeared irregular, the auditor-general said accountability systems were improving.
Tsakani Maluleke, the national leader of auditing services, told the media briefing: “We didn’t audit Nkandla.”
She referred journalists to the Department of Public Works audit outcome, which stated that the department had improved from a disclaimer a year ago to a qualified audit opinion this year.
“The improvement is mainly attributable to the stabilisation in leadership in the fourth quarter, which coincided with the appointment of a consortium of consultants which assisted management,” the report said.
Nombembe, who is retiring from the post of auditor-general at the end of the month, issued the consolidated general report on the national and provincial audit outcomes in Parliament yesterday.
Of the 450 audits finalised – 26 were not finished – by August 31, outcomes on 96 had improved while 61 had regressed.
Nombembe was particularly pleased that the number of clean audit opinions had increased to 105, or 22 percent of the auditees, up from 17 percent last year. - Business Report