Drive towards clean audits gains momentum as departments improve
A NUMBER of KwaZulu-Natal government departments showed an improvement in their audit outcomes, demonstrating that the government’s continued efforts to achieve clean audits was on track, Finance MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube told the KZN Legislature yesterday.
Presenting the Finance Department’s budget vote, Dube-Ncube said the commitment to achieving clean audits across government departments and entities still remained top priority.
“Operation clean audit must and still remains our number one focus. The continued implementation of the province-wide operation clean audit programme has had an overall improvement in the provincial PFMA (Public Finance Management Act) audit outcomes, whereby five auditees improved their audit opinion while one department regressed,” said the MEC.
The audit results for the 2021/22 financial year, she added, reflected that 5 departments and 13 public entities achieved clean audits, 7 departments and 5 entities received unqualified audit reports, while 3 departments received qualified audit reports.
She pointed out that the improvement of the effectiveness of financial management in the province, remains a priority towards the attainment of improved audit outcomes, and is a culmination of the efforts of all business
units within provincial treasury working towards a common outcome.
“In order to ensure long-term sustainability of audit improvements and process efficiencies, the provincial risk management and combined assurance frameworks were approved by the provincial executive council during the 2021/22 financial year. The two frameworks are envisaged to improve risk management and internal control processes of all departments once implemented,” Dube-Ncube continued.
She told the sitting that at local government level the 2020/21 municipal audit outcomes reflected the hard work and dedication of the provincial treasury officials who helped municipalities to improve their audit outcomes.
According to the MEC, the effort had yielded encouraging results which included 8 improved audit outcomes (32 municipalities with unqualified audit reports) and 2 regressions (15 municipalities with qualified audit reports). She admitted though that 45 municipalities remain unchanged during the year.
As part of dealing with fraud and corruption, the provincial treasury was considering reviewing the financial disclosure framework to compel all officials in the provincial government to disclose their financial interest irrespective of their ranks or responsibility.
She indicated that the government was working with professional bodies and recognised accounting organisations in pursuit of clean governance and financial management within both government and the private sector.
She added that another focus area was the implementation of an e-learning portal to assist with the training of departments and municipalities.
“The portal will allow for the development of specific subject content. The level of training and knowledge given at institutions will be tracked on various subject matters. The tool will facilitate the empowerment of institutions on internal control and risk management as well as supply chain management subjects. The department will also work at ensuring that Provincial Treasury is compliant with the Generic Structure as prescribed.”