IMPROVE AUDIT
IMPROVING AUDIT QUALITY TO ADDRESS MATERIAL IRREGULARITIES Amos Zungu
Registered Government Auditor Lecturer: Auditing and Taxation, Durban University of Technology
W
e have not seen improvements in audit outcomes in municipalities, provincial and national departments with huge budgets and significant public interest like education, health etc and on key SOEs like the power utility, Eskom. Instead, clean audits have been recorded in a few municipalities, particularly in the Western Cape. There have also been clean audits reported in departments and public entities with small budgets and less significant public interest.
The questions that could be asked are: •
What is it that the leadership has done to improve the audit outcomes of municipalities, major/significant departments and SOEs with huge public interest?
•
Why are leaders failing to provide leadership on the outcomes that must be
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maintained by municipalities/ significant departments & SOEs? •
How can consequence management be implemented for ministers, and accounting officers in key departments who fail to achieve improved audit outcomes?
Financial management by government departments, SOEs and municipalities; material irregularities and financial losses as per the Public Audit Act. PFMA section 38 and MFMA section 62 contain the general financial management responsibilities of the accounting officers. The PFMA and MFMA require accounting officers to manage the revenue, expenditure, assets and liabilities of the departments and municipalities. Importantly, they must prevent unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditures and other losses. Departments and municipalities have been failing to prevent irregular expenditures and financial losses.
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