AG tells province’s councils to heed calls for clean audits

THE office of the auditor-general in the Western Cape has warned that municipalities will continue to see regression in audit outcomes if recommendations are not heeded.

The business executive for the Western Cape, Sharonne Adams addressed a media briefing this week, where she said municipalities and other public entities should reflect on their 2016/2017 audit outcomes and make changes to ensure accountability.

Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu announced audit outcomes for local government in May giving a national picture of the health of municipalities’ books. Adams zoomed in on the state of the Western Cape’s local government entities this week. She said the regression seen in the audit outcomes could be attributed to municipalities not taking recommendations seriously, and not demonstrating required levels of accountability and governance.

Adams said Cape Town, Bitou and Eden District, lost their clean audit status. “This was due to material non-compliance with supply chain management regulations at all three municipalities, irregular expenditure not being prevented in Bitou, and weaknesses in consequence management and revenue management at the City of Cape Town metro. Continued improvements in the levels of accountability and governance… contributed to Cederberg and Prince Albert achieving a clean audit opinion for the first time,” she said. The local government audit outcomes included 30 municipalities .

Meanwhile, the Public Audit Amendment Bill, which is set to give more powers to the auditor-general to refer cases to law enforcement agencies, is yet to be assented to by the president, after it was passed by the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces in May and June, respectively.

PICTURE: ELMOND JIYANE/GCIS President Cyril Ramaphosa meets Southern African Development Community leaders before the the body’s politics, defence and security summit held in Windhoek, Namibia.