Bill passed to help auditor-general fight graft

THE NATIONAL Council of Provinces (NCOP) will in the next few weeks work on the amendments to the Public Audit Bill after the National Assembly approved the legislation.

This followed several months of work by the National Assembly to give the Auditor-General (AG), Kimi Makwetu, more teeth to fight corruption.

After the NCOP has approved the bill it will be referred to President Cyril Ramaphosa to be signed into law.

Makwetu has said he hoped the bill will come into effect next year. This will be in time for the auditing of the books of the 2018/19 financial year, which ends in March.

All parties said yesterday the approval of the bill by the National Assembly was a step in the right direction.

Sizani Dlamini-Dubazana of the ANC said they are happy that all the parties have backed the bill. Dlamini-Dubazana said this was a very important piece of legislation in the fight against corruption.

“This bill was initiated by the standing committee on the auditor-general and we had very good reasons for that.” It would give the AG, Makwetu, the necessary teeth to deal with issues of material irregularities in the state.

Munzoor Shaik Emam of the National Freedom Party said the bill was long overdue given the scale of corruption in municipalities, departments and state-owned entities (SOE). He said they wanted serious action against those who are implicated in corruption.

“While we appreciate the bill, it will be no value if there are no consequences for officials,” said Emam.

IFP chief whip Narend Singh said it was incomprehensible that unauthorised expenditure was crippling the state.

He said issues of irregular, wasteful and unauthorised expenditure were becoming serious in municipalities, departments and SOEs.

He said departments and municipalities were overcharged for goods and services by suppliers.

Singh said this was evident in the issue raised by the DA earlier, of R72 million charged for Eskom to buy chairs.