The North West Provincial Legislature’s Standing Committee on Provincial Public Accounts (SCOPA) applauded the current board of the North West Housing Corporation on the winding down processes of the Corporation and addressing the audit outcomes for the financial 2013/14.
The Corporation received a qualified audit opinion on the same financial year with matters of emphasis on the investment properties, revenue and trade and other receivables, retained earnings and irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure of prior years.
The Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation, Mr. Chris Moller said the NWHS has not been administratively functional since the end of 2009 and the Auditor General disclaimed the last set of financial statements on the 2007/08 financial year.
“In 2013/14 financial year, the corporation managed to submit financial statements of six (6) prior years hence the qualification by the Auditor General. About 95% of the findings are linked to the asset register. The team also managed to conduct asset verifications of up to 7000 credible properties which was included on the financial statements to the Auditor General which led to these qualification,” said Mr. Moller.
He said the corporation requires funding to appoint service providers who will assist with the asset verifications in other three (3) provinces where the entity has assets. “We are still struggling to conceptualize and reconstruct the asset registers and find credible title deed owners,” said Mr. Moller.
The MEC for the Department of Local Government and Human Settlement, Collen Maine said the department has engaged provinces where the entity has assets to resolve the verification processes and transfer them.
“We hope the Premier and the Provincial Treasury will assist with the relevant funding to ensure that the winding-down process is successfully conducted,” said MEC Maine.
SCOPA Chairperson, Hon. Mahlakeng Mahlakeng said there had been a lot of improvements on the winding-down processes as the Auditor General managed to arrive at a qualification after many years of non-submission of annual financial statements.
“The team should submit a comprehensive report aligning the status quo of the processes which includes how it dealt with the matters on the audit report such as the asset register, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The Committee will meet with the department after 14 working days.
