Auditor-general aims to usher in a new era of accountability

• Published date: 04 March 2021

Tsakani Maluleke is using new powers granted to her to get the government to play by the rules Political EditorAuditor-general Tsakani Maluleke says her office has been working hard on implementing new legislation that gives it more teeth to deal with public entities flouting financial controls and has identified R5.8bn of losses in the current finan-cial year.

The Public Audit Act, which was amended in 2019, gives the auditor-general the power to report any material irregularities detected during audits.

A material irregularity is defined as any noncompliance with or contravention of legislation, fraud, theft or a breach of a fiduciary duty that could result in material financial loss.

The amendments empower the auditor-general to refer a material irregularity to another public body for investigation and take binding remedial action if her audit-report recommendations are not implemented.

If the remedial action is not implemented within the prescribed period the audit office can issue a certificate of debt to recover the lost money from the accounting officers or authorities.

In an interview with Business Day, Maluleke said her office was looking at material irregularities in 146 audits, 89 in national and provincial government and 57 in local government.

These were chosen because her office wanted to target those with long histories of irregular expenditure, those with the highest expenditure budgets and those directly involved in service delivery. These included health and education departments and state-owned entities.

"We are busy finalising the reports for the 2020 audit, and we are at a point where we’ve got a total of 78 material irregularities for the PFMA [Public Finance Management Act] cycle arising from the audits we’ve conducted, and the value is about R5.8bn," Maluleke said.

The auditor-general has also conducted a special audit on Covid-19 relief schemes. She said there were also material irregularities that emerged out of following up investigations.

But Maluleke said there was confusion about what these new powers allowed her office to do and she is often asked, "when are you putting people in jail?", or "when are you issuing a certificate of debt?"

She said though her office had these new powers, there is a process to follow before a matter is referred to a...