SKUKUZA – The office of the Auditor General (AG) yesterday presented a trophy to the South African National Parks (SANParks) for having a clean audit for the financial year 2012/ 13.
This is a second successive clean audit for the organisation, following on the 2011/12 financial report. Prior to that, the organisation has had 18 unqualified audits under various CEOs.
The current chief, Dr David Mabunda, has had the lion’s share, with nine unqualified reports and two clean audits to his credit.
His predecessors, Mr Mavuso Msimang and Dr GAR Robinson received seven and two during their terms since the dawn of democracy. A clean audit means the organisation has presented fairly in all material aspects.
This is in accordance with the South African Standards of Generally Recognised Accounting Practice (GRAP) and the requirements of the Public Management Act of South Africa 1999 (Act No 1 0f 1999) PFMA.
Ms Corne Myburgh, business executive at the AG’s office, congratulated Mabunda and his team saying, “This is the second time we are recognising your organisation for this great achievement, and we would like to encourage you and the team to build on the current controls, keep up the culture of compliance and governance. Pass our congratulations on to your audit committee too, and continue doing us proud.”
Mabunda responded by thanking the office of the AG and giving a promise that controls which were in place would be maintained and improved upon where necessary. “Twenty years ago, this organisation’s budget was at R164 million and today we have a budget of R1,2 billion, that comes with a lot of responsibility. We are cognisant of the fact that we are custodians of the country’s natural heritage and we need to be smarter in carrying out our mandate with the meagre resources we have at hand,” said Mabunda.
Chairman of the board of SANParks, Mr Kuseni Dlamini, said the board was committed to ensuring that is continued to give the necessary support to management to maintain this record and that it took its fiduciary responsibilities very seriously.
“Our country has a lot of other pressing challenges that require resources like the provision of clean drinking water, primary health services and many other important issues. We are committed to ensuring that we do much with the little we have. Money is a finite product and there is not much to go around especially when it comes to conservation. We are committed to raising a large part of our budgetary needs and continuing to be frugal and strict when it comes to finances,” added Mabunda.
The Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Ms Edna Molewa, also extended her congratulations to SANParks. She said, “We are very proud of these achievements of SANParks. As we celebrate 20 years of freedom, it is apparent that our natural heritage is in safe hands. The diligence with which SANParks looks after its finances, should be a lesson and an example to other institutions. Working together we can achieve so much more,” she concluded.
