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Cape Town - The provinces of Gauteng and the Western Cape have recorded “good and solid performance” in this year’s audit outcomes of national and provincial government departments and public entities, announced on Wednesday by auditor general Kimi Makwetu.
While Makwetu avoided questions about political accountability, he did say that Gauteng – which is an ANC ruled province, and the Western Cape – the only opposition ruled province led by the Democratic Alliance, had “led the charge and performed admirably”.
He told a news briefing at parliament that "the number of auditees with clean audit opinions improved by 25%, with the highest contributors being Gauteng and the Western Cape".
He noted regressions in the number of auditees with clean audit opinions in certain departments and in KwaZulu Natal.
“There was a 14% reduction in the number of auditees with financially unqualified financial audit opinions with no findings, while the number of auditees with financially qualified financial statements remained unchanged,” he reported of KwaZulu Natal.
Five improvements were offset by five regressions, resulting in no net improvement in the audit outcomes of KwaZulu Natal, noting that the audits of the provincial legislature and two public entities were still outstanding at the time of the AG’s report.
The other six provinces reported similar results to the previous year’s audit. For example, the Free State showed a slight year-one-year improvement in the overall audit outcomes when compared to the previous year, but the number of clean audit opinions remained unchanged.
Asked why year after year poor audit outcomes were produced by the same departments, municipalities and other state institutions, Makwetu said the responsibility lay with the accounting officer – normally the director general – and a failure to put in place the appropriate risk prevention mechanisms.
