Pretoria - KwaZulu-Natal Premier Willies Mchunu has warned Heads of Departments, Chief Financial Officers and senior managers that there will be consequences for accounting officers who perform poorly and fail to adhere to good financial management practices.
Premier Mchunu, who was addressing accounting officers of the provincial government during a Special Extended Provincial Executive Council meeting in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday, said it was the statutory responsibility of accounting officers and all senior managers to maintain effective systems of internal controls.
“I expect senior managers to set the tone regarding the importance of internal controls and expected standards of conduct from employees. If we want to develop a good image of this government, the day-to-day implementation of Operation Clean Audit should not be delegated to CFOs only.
“All civil servants must play a role. It cannot be correct that there can be no consequence management for accounting officers who are not able to get their books in order,” said Premier Mchunu.
The meeting was convened to assess the provincial audit outcomes of the province, which were presented to the executive council by Auditor General Kimi Makwetu last week.
The 2015/16 audit report indicated positive outcomes compared to the 2014/15 audit outcomes. Unauthorised expenditure had decreased over three years. There was also a slight improvement since the previous year in the number of auditees with no material findings on compliance with key legislation.
The Auditor General pointed out that there has been a reduction in unauthorised expenditure, irregular expenditure and fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
However, the executive council remains concerned about the continuous qualified audit opinions received by some provincial departments. Litigation and claims caused 94% of the fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
“It can no longer be business as usual, otherwise we will never get clean audits for all our departments in the province,” said Premier Mchunu.
He said a turnaround strategy would include strengthening monitoring and evaluating mechanisms within the Office of the Premier in order to strengthen accountability measures in all government departments.
“We are expecting all Heads of Departments to cooperate with this in-built accountability mechanism and to tell us as the Office of the Premier the challenges that are being experienced in departments ahead of time so we can work together in finding solutions before we land up with bad audit outcomes.” – SAnews.gov.za
