Programme director, Mr P Masudubele
The Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), Hon. NS Mtsweni
Managers and officials from public service
Presenters from various auditing institutions
Participants to the symposium
Ladies and gentlemen
We are gathered here today during a very important month in the history of South Africa, the “Human Rights month”.
You will agree with me that the promotion and observance of Human Rights in this country forms part of a solid foundation we have built when we achieved our democracy and when we also re-affirmed the social contract with our people.
We promised our people that we will uphold the constitution as the supreme law of the country and, that we will promote good governance at all times.
Guided by those commitments and bearing in mind the challenges we are faced with to better the lives of our people and to provide them with speedy service delivery, we confirmed our determination to the vision of better life for all.
Ladies and gentlemen
We are humbled by your presence in this important event, whose objective is to mobilise thought processes and skills to improve governance ethos in the provincial and local government.
It is not a co-incidence that we are hosting the internal audit and risk management symposium here today.
In fact, Premier David Mabuza challenged all of us to improve the governance processes in the province during his state of the Province Address.
He expressed the province’s determination to ensure that the systems are improved so that this “administration becomes a beacon of accountable and clean governance”.
This kind of gatherings affirms our commitment to doing everything possible to respond to the issues that the Premier addressed in his address to the people of Mpumalanga last month.
Programme director,
The concept of a holistic approach of risk management traces its roots to the early 1970s when Gustav Hamilton of Sweden’s Statsforetag proposed the “risk management circle” to describe the interaction of all elements in the risk management process (assessment, control, financing and communication).
Since then, the technical and financial sides of risk management have gradually been integrated under the same independent function; most medium-size and large organisations have now adopted risk management practices because of their benefits and/or legislation compliance.
We recognise that internal audit and risk management professionals are critical to our goal of making ours a truly developmental public service that provides service in a fair and consistent manner to the people.
Managers and internal audit and risk managers alike are the custodian of good corporate governance because of the nature of the work that they do. They are expected to fulfil their responsibilities in accordance to the mandates of their positions in the public service.
They must ensure that there is compliance with all the Treasury Regulations and other prescripts, especially the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).
I believe that if all officials improve performance in this regard, they will be strengthening our democracy and upholding the rights of our people as contained in the Constitution.
Risk is inherent in the policies, strategies and programmes that we develop for implementation. The recognition of this unpleasant fact is what makes a concept of development-oriented public service more interesting for professionals who want to make the best out of the challenges that we are often confronted with in implementation of government programmes.
We must continue to advocate for and promote risk management as an integral part of sound organisational management in the province.
The extension of the general responsibilities, in terms of Section 45 of the PFMA, to all managers is a cornerstone of the institution of risk management in the public service.
This legislation establishes responsibility for risk management at all levels of management, extending it beyond the roles of the Accounting Officer, the internal audit units or the Audit Committee in this regard.
I sincerely believe it is not unreasonable to expect that each employee in the public service, who participates in the process of implementation of government programme, should engage in this process of addressing the risk attached to their activities with the goal of achieving sustained benefit with each activity and across the portfolio of activities.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The concept of risk is not new to the public sector; you will recall that the Risk Management Framework by the National Treasury embraces all those principles as enshrined in the third Report on Governance in South Africa, popularly known as King III Report.
The basis of the framework emanates from the PFMA and sound risk management principles and it is also dictated to by the Principles of Batho Pele.
The repositioned risk-based approach directs internal audit to address strategic operational, financial and sustainability issues in order to deliver value to the institution.
There is an added responsibility on the head of internal audit to understand the institution’s strategy and to direct the function accordingly.
I therefore, put my hope on you as managers that you will exercise leadership to deal with risk management from becoming a series of activities that are detached from the realities of our departmental business.
You must know that if you do your work professionally, this will assist government to curb mismanagement, wasteful expenditure and will also minimise corruption in the public sector.
It is my greatest pleasure to extend a warm welcome to all participants and guests to the first symposium convened for internal auditors and risk officers.
I wish you well in your deliberations throughout this session. I trust that you will interact with the presentations and make use of this opportunity to empower yourself for future challenges.
I thank you.
