Auditors General of the world to meet in Cape Town

Friday, September 30, 2016

Cape Town – Auditor General Kimi Makwetu says auditors general from around the world will meet in Cape Town on Monday to tackle issues affecting the auditing profession across several states.

In an interview with SAnews, the Auditor General said about 100 international public sector auditing experts – including about 10 auditors general from seven countries – will hold a four-day plenary conference of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (Intosai).

Makwetu said the Office of the Auditor General of South Africa chairs Intosai’s capacity-building committee which is a critical grouping responsible for finding innovate ways to build and improve the capacity of public sector auditors in all member states.

“South Africa is a member of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (Intosai). If you look at Intosai, it is structured around four strategic goals.

“One of those four strategic goals is a goal on capacity building - capacity building of all the auditors general from around the world, particularly among the developing world.

“So South Africa was given the task at a congress that was held in China in 2013 to take on the chairmanship of this capacity building committee.

“So we are also hosting this conference in that context as the chair of the global capacity building committee of Intosai…,” he said.  

The Auditor General said the outcomes of the Cape Town meeting will feed into the main congress scheduled to take place in the United Arab Emirates in December. The congress takes place every three years.

“If you recall …when Terence Nombembe was still Auditor General, he hosted the global conference in Johannesburg in 2010 and where we adopted quite a number of resolutions which started getting implemented.

“One of them is the area of capacity building – advancing the capacity of member countries - so that they can best deal with issues of independence, they can best deal with the issue of the professionalisation of their people.

“In this instance, as we are hosting this meeting, we also had a task as South Africa to spearhead what we call Intosai auditors certification, to look at efforts of providing the framework of how public sector auditors could be certified so that a person who is a public sector auditor does have the recognition in terms of the role that they have in different countries,” he said.

Makwetu said the meeting helps participating audit institutions draw best practices from each other to improve auditing in their respective countries.

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng is expected to be one of the main guest speakers at the Cape Town meeting.

AG report of national departments out in November

The Auditor General said, meanwhile, he was expecting to release the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) report for the 2015/16 financial year in the first week of November. 

He said his office was currently interacting with the stakeholders on the outcomes.

“The individual reports for various institutions are already being tabled in Parliament, but the overall analysis and outcome as we usually do it is the one that will emerge beginning of November,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za