The Gauteng Provincial Government has commended all provincial departments for their ongoing efforts to improve the management of public finances and taking corrective action to address poor performance.
This follows an audit report, where all 12 provincial departments and public entities have received an unqualified audit status in the 2015/16 financial year.
“This is the best performance recorded by the province in 13 years and serves as an indication that our province is well on track towards achieving its goal of establishing credible financial control systems, and ultimately realising 100 percent clean audits,” the provincial government said in a statement.
The Premier’s Office, Legislature, COGTA, Provincial Treasury, Social Development, Economic Development, as well as e-Government have achieved clean audits.
Seven departments, including Education, Community Safety, Roads and Transport, Infrastructure Development, Agriculture and Rural Development, Health and Human Settlements achieved unqualified opinions.
The provincial government attributed the Health Department’s improvement from qualified to unqualified audit status to that department’s strategic intervention plan.
“These plans were rolled out in all health institutions. The department also strengthened the functioning of its governance structures with regards to Risk Management and Integrity Management and rolled these out at the institutional level, and coupled this with a strong political will to succeed.”
Thirteen public entities — Dinokeng, Gauteng Film Commission, Gauteng Partnership Fund, IDZ Development Company, Constitutional Hill Precinct, Innovative Hub, Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, Gauteng Tourism Authority, Gauteng Gambling Board, Supplier Park Development Company, Gauteng Growth and Development Agency, and Cost Recovery — achieved clean audits.
Other public entities, including Greater Newtown Development Company, Gauteng Liquor Board, Gauteng Enterprise Propeller, MEDSAS, Gauteng Housing Fund and G-Fleet achieved unqualified audit opinions.
The provincial government noted that decisive interventions to address challenges at G-Fleet, the agency of the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport, led to the public entity moving from a disclaimer last year to achieving an unqualified audit status in this audit cycle.
“We welcome the Auditor General’s report and we are encouraged by the improvements that were noted by the report.
“We will continue to work closely with departments to ensure compliance with procurement rules and regulations, conduct extensive reviews of monthly, quarterly and annual financial statements, address recurring audit findings and provide targeted financial reporting training, as part of a broader intervention to eliminate material amendments to the annual financial statements.
“Although we have improved significantly, I remain concerned about irregular expenditure and that some departments are not paying service providers within 30 days. The Open Tender System, which is being rolled out, will assist us to eliminate irregular expenditure and enforce compliance with supply chain regulations.”
Source: GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION SYSTEM