THE CAUSES

According to the Auditor-General, the root causes of poor financial audit outcomes in the Province are:

Too much reliance placed on consultants, although improvements made by departments were largely due to consultants. However, the sustainability of the improvements is “questionable” as no skills transfer took place.

The leadership’s attitude towards the audit process, evident from the quality and timeousness of responses on audit findings. Vacancies in key positions. Inadequately skilled IT personnel, leading to badly designed or implemented policies and procedures, like governance framework and disaster recovery plans. (The A-G’s office also highlighted risks in the departments’ IT systems, like a lack of firewalls in place, insecure passwords and the threat of hacking. This is despite the awarding of a multi-million contract to Lefatshe Technologies, specifically to address these issues.)

Lack of commitment from leadership resulting in commitments not being implemented.

Lack of consequences for non- performance.

Only a draft Memorandum of Understanding is in place to define clear roles and responsibilities to enforce accountability between the Premier’s Office and the departments.

Many departments lack the proper systems to ensure accurate financial reporting. As a result, auditors are relied on to identify misstatements and the department only tries to correct these afterwards.

Inadequate discipline in terms of tracking the progress made in addressing findings relating to information systems.