AG Maluleke tells MPs there's been vast improvement in audit outcomes across all spheres of govt

CAPE TOWN - Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke said that they’d seen a vast improvement in audit outcomes across all spheres of government.

But she said that far too many "high impact" auditees or entities still failed to submit their annual financial statements for scrutiny on time.

Maluleke was briefing a joint meeting of House chairpersons from the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on audit outcomes and material irregularities.

The Auditor-General was back before Parliament to give members of both Houses an update on the state of finances of the different provincial and national government entities.

While she noted weaknesses in certain areas, she said there'd been an overall improvement, even in problematic entities like TVET colleges and legislatures.

"We’ve seen over the last five years improvements in audit outcomes right across the system, whether you’re talking departments or entities or even legislatures, which operate on the basis of the Financial Management of Parliament Act rather than Public Finance Management Act. We’ve seen improvements everywhere, even the TVET colleges we’ve seen improvement over the last five years."

But far too many entities were not submitting financials on time.

"We’ve also got in this group, the post office and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme which has been struggling to submit financial statements on time for a number of years now."

House chairperson, Cedric Froli,ck, said that the individual audit outcomes of each department would now go to the relevant committee for further scrutiny.