City Press goes on a witch hunt in an effort to try to implicate Parliament financial management and the accounting officer
In selective reporting slanted towards sensational negative reporting City Press today, publishes a misleading report that totally ignores the excellent audit report of Parliament. A clear and striking fact is that the Auditor General has issued a highly sought after clean audit, for Parliament for two consecutive years.
This unequivocally means in the year in question, Parliament managed it's finances well and has complied with all requirements of Financial Management of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act
(FMPPLA) and generally recognised accounting standards.
The matter raised by the City Press on concerns raised by the AG relate to the treatment after condonation of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Parliament’s perspective of putting in place processes of consequence management are not in dispute between Parliament and the Auditor General.
The instances stated in the City Press report have been tabled as part of the annual report to the Executive Authority, before the publishing of the report. Hence this matter was not considered to be material enough to qualify the financial statements of Parliament.
Therefore, the narrow one sided report of City Press is merely aimed at presenting a jaundiced view about Parliament's financial management and the Secretary to Parliament without any credible substantive reason.
Accordingly, Parliament calls on the City Press, in line with the expected role of media, to try harder to present a balanced view and resist reports based on a narrative that has a predetermined destructive agenda.
