Cabinet has welcomed and congratulated national and provincial government departments and entities that received clean audit outcomes in the 2017/18 annual reports.
Auditor General (AG) Kimi Makwetu on Thursday released the Public Finance Management Audit Report of the 2017/18 financial year.
In a statement on Thursday, Cabinet said while it welcomed the clean audit outcomes, it was concerned with the overall deterioration in the audit results of some national and provincial government departments and their entities.
“The signing into law of the Public Audit Amendment Bill by President [Cyril] Ramaphosa, which will strengthen the work of the Office of the AG, will assist in holding accountable those that continue to have disregard for the governance framework,” read the statement.
Cabinet encouraged all departments and entities to work on remedial interventions on all the issues flagged by the AG and to monitor progress regularly to address issues before the next audit cycle.
Makwetu on Wednesday said while 43 auditees obtained clean audits, they were overshadowed by the 73 that regressed from the previous year. This represents an overall 23% regression.
According the report, 13 departments were given clean audits during the period under review, while 23 lost their clean audit status.
The report also reveals that 50 public entities recorded a decline in audit outcomes, while 30 showed an improvement.
With the term of office for the current administration drawing to a close, the AG said he hoped that the outgoing administration will have emphatically tackled the governance and accountability challenges flagged by his office over the past five years. – SAnews.gov.za
