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Sun City – Only slightly more than a third of state-owned companies audited by the auditor-general and summoned by parliament were given unqualified audits during the past financial year.
Chairperson of parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Themba Godi, said only 73 out of 177 companies had completely clean and verifiable accounts. That represented 42% of the companies, while a further 47% (80 companies) were “unqualified” with “other matters” that needed attention.
“It is our belief that proper financial management in parastatals must be implemented, strengthened and monitored,” said Godi. He was speaking at the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Advancement of Black Accountants Association of SA (Abasa).
Godi said the problem was corruption, lack of leadership and lack of capacity in the state-owned (SOE) companies. “There is a lack of immediate response to deal with it when corruption has been uncovered,” said Godi.
Godi said a majority (63%) of the companies received qualified audits because capital assets were not accounted for - in other words, due to theft of company property.
“There’s an urgent need to deal with corporate governance in state-owned companies,” said Godi. A major problem was the lack of proper internal controls.
“Many SOEs have been in the news for the wrong reasons, at the centre of which there are leadership challenges,” said Godi. He said Scopa was negotiating with a view to passing legislation to maximise its power to exercise oversight over ministerial accountability, “to bring about order” in SOEs.
The rest of the companies viewed by Scopa received qualified disclaimers as the auditors could not form an opinion based on documents viewed. Godi said audit committees of boards needed to be strengthened with strong and qualified people in order to overcome the problem of record-keeping.
- Fin24.com
Chairperson of parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Themba Godi, said only 73 out of 177 companies had completely clean and verifiable accounts. That represented 42% of the companies, while a further 47% (80 companies) were “unqualified” with “other matters” that needed attention.
“It is our belief that proper financial management in parastatals must be implemented, strengthened and monitored,” said Godi. He was speaking at the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Advancement of Black Accountants Association of SA (Abasa).
Godi said the problem was corruption, lack of leadership and lack of capacity in the state-owned (SOE) companies. “There is a lack of immediate response to deal with it when corruption has been uncovered,” said Godi.
Godi said a majority (63%) of the companies received qualified audits because capital assets were not accounted for - in other words, due to theft of company property.
“There’s an urgent need to deal with corporate governance in state-owned companies,” said Godi. A major problem was the lack of proper internal controls.
“Many SOEs have been in the news for the wrong reasons, at the centre of which there are leadership challenges,” said Godi. He said Scopa was negotiating with a view to passing legislation to maximise its power to exercise oversight over ministerial accountability, “to bring about order” in SOEs.
The rest of the companies viewed by Scopa received qualified disclaimers as the auditors could not form an opinion based on documents viewed. Godi said audit committees of boards needed to be strengthened with strong and qualified people in order to overcome the problem of record-keeping.
- Fin24.com
