Premier proud of clean audits

ALL 12 Gauteng provincial departments and public entities have received clean audit status for the 2015/16 financial year, a first for the province in 13 years, Premier David Makhura said yesterday.

He was speaking during a release of the audit outcomes of the provincial government in Soweto.

In essence, seven provincial departments, including the Premier’s Office, and 13 public entities achieved clean audits, while another seven achieved unqualified audits together with six other public entities.

Makhura said this 100 percent clean-audit performance served as an indication that the province was well on track towards achieving its goal of establishing credible financial control systems, set by his administration when it took office in 2014.

“This is our best performance recorded by the province in 13 years,” Makhura said.

A clean audit is achieved if financial statements are free from material misstatements, there are no adverse findings on annual performance reports, and if there are no material findings on compliance with key laws and regulations.

Makhura said even the Gauteng Health Department had turned the corner, improving from a qualified to an unqualified audit status in just a year.

He said this improvement could be attributed to the department putting in place a strategic intervention plan on all previous audit outcomes, revenue management in particular.

“The department also strengthened the functioning of its governance structures with regard to risk management and integrity management, and rolled these out at the institutional level and coupled this with a strong political will to succeed,” he added.

Another agency that had improved its status from a disclaimer last year to an unqualified audit status this year was G-Fleet, an agency of the Department of Roads and Transport.

Makhura commended the departments that were improving their management of public finances. –