Cape Town - The auditor general's office, facing a dire challenge in the shortage of auditors in this country, is attempting to alleviate the problem in a novel way - by importing auditors from India.

The idea came from Deloitte & Touche, which said they would allow auditors employed by Deloitte (India) to come and work here. Kimi Makwetu, the deputy auditor general, said that the Indians, who would be the equivalent of chartered accountants, will be able to help with the municipal auditing season, and will assist in training and monitoring aspirant auditors, who will over time ease the shortage of auditors from within.

"If not constantly supervised, the trainees become demoralised," Makwetu said.

The regions that will take the Indian migrant auditors are seeking to keep them for between 12 and 24 months. The initial intake will be 20 of them. But this number is likely to increase over time.

Other challenges faced by the auditor's office, which were described on Wednesday to the standing committee on the auditor general, include the unwillingness of municipal councils to pay for the audits that they are required to have.

MPs on the committee were told that debts from local authorities outstanding for between 30 and 120 days last year amounted to R35m. This year the total has risen to R53.1m.

According to Makwetu, they are using no stringent methods of recovering the outstanding debts. "We continue to try to persuade them to pay up," he said. "And to plead and to show them why we need to be paid."

To some extent at least these techniques seem to have worked - at least in the Free State, where the municipalities are beginning to cough up.

- I-Net Bridge