AG engages media at local offices; explains role of the media
The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA), Tsakani Maluleke visited the local offices of the AG in the city last Thursday to engage with local print, digital as well as broadcaster houses.
Maluleke emphasised that the media is one of the AG’s ‘business partners’ and explained that the media provides a platform for the AG to inform the public about the institution’s activities and to create awareness of the critical role the AG plays to ensure that public money is spent ideally and for the purposes intended.
To ensure that the AG meets its mandate, annual audits of the finances and performance of public institutions are performed and the focus thereof is to detect unauthorised, irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The AG’s annual audits examine whether there is a fair representation or the absence of significant misstatements in financial statements, whether the performance information regarding predetermined objectives is reliable and credible and whether the auditee complied with key laws and regulations.
After such an audit, an audit outcome follows and the ideal opinion is a financially unqualified opinion with no findings, called a clean audit. The other outcomes may be a financially unqualified opinion with findings (not bad but not ideal), a financially qualified opinion with findings (the situation is worrying), an adverse opinion with findings (lots of problems everywhere) and lastly a disclaimed opinion with findings (the worst outcome). “The AG has then completed its task and the auditee’s accounting officer is compelled to take appropriate action,” Maluleke explained.
Asked about challenges when auditing municipalities, Maluleke said that the cooperation from municipalities are good and that the late submission of financial statements does occur, but the main challenge lies with information that are not always responsive and accurate. “The quality of some statements is bad and it delays the finalisation of audits,” the AG said.
Maluleke also said that the Office of the AG engaged key personnel that are not necessarily from a financial background.
“To be able to do a proper audit of an institution’s matters, one has to know its business and we have therefore taken specialists from other disciplines to assist us,” she added.