report at special hearing
14 March 2006
The Auditor-General of South Africa, Mr Shauket Fakie, addressed the
Portfolio Committee of Home Affairs in Parliament today to clarify the reasons
for the late tabling of the audit report of the Department of Home Affairs,
which led to the late tabling of the Departmentâs Annual Report for 2004/05 and
subsequently to their non-compliance with the Public Finance Management Act
(PFMA), Act 1 of 1999.
The Annual Report, which should have been tabled before end September 2005
in terms of the PFMA, will now only be tabled by end March 2006. This is
because the Auditor-Generalâs audit report, which must be included in the
Departmentâs Annual Report, was only finalised on 10 March 2006.
Todayâs special hearing of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs was
called after the Minister of Home Affairs, Ms NN Mapisa-Nqakula, tabled a
report to the Committee in February 2006, in which she alleged that the
Auditor-General had contributed to the late tabling of their Annual Report.
In his response to the Portfolio Committee, the Auditor-General stated
clearly that the main reasons for the delay in the audit process were:
* insufficient co-operation from and availability of staff members of the
Department during the audit process;
* unavailability of key documents pertaining to the audit, despite numerous
written requests to the Departmentâs management between 27 July and 23 August
2005; and
* the fact that the Department of Home Affairs suspended 12 of its staff
members during the audit period on suspicion of fraud; which instigated an
investigation in the Department. The suspension of these staff members
significantly altered the Auditor-Generalâs initial assessment of risk and
materiality, and led to an increase in sample sizes, which meant an additional
request for documentation to be audited. This, in turn, led to a substantial
increase in auditing fees.
âAs Auditor-General I have an obligation to promote accountability in the
public sector by providing independent quality audit reports to Parliament; to
enable them to fulfil their responsibility to account to the people of South
Africa how their tax money is being spentâ, says Mr Fakie.
âThe delay in finalising the Department of Home Affairs audit on time to
enable them to comply with PFMA requirements is unfortunate, but was brought
about by the necessity to follow due process to ensure proper accountability
takes place.
âThe Minister and I have already met to discuss the challenges that faced us
during this audit process, and to agree on the corrective steps required to
improve the audit process in future,â he says.
Contact: Adri van der Merwe
Business Executive: Reputation & Stakeholder Management
Auditor-General
Tel: (012) 426 8175
Cell: 082 787 5291
Email: adrivdm@agsa.co.za
Issued by: Office of the Auditor-General South Africa
14 March 2006
Source: Office of the Auditor-General South Africa (http://www.agsa.co.za/)
