No clean audit outcomes for Transport Dept

Irregular and wasteful expenditures are some of the hindrances that kept the Department of Transport from acquiring clean audit opinions in the 2014/15 to 2017/18 financial years.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts learnt during last Thursday’s public hearing at Parliamentary Village that the department had incurred irregular expenditure amounting to
R5 933 000 and wasteful expenditure in excess of R1 115 000. A statement issued by Provincial Legislature’s communication division indicated that the committee advised the department to tighten up its consequence management and deal effectively with guilty officials regardless of rank. It was reported that the department remained stagnant on unqualified audit outcomes for the past seven years.
This is, among others, was due to the fact that the financial statements did not include an analysis of accrued departmental revenue as required by the Auditor-General (AG). The committee sharply raised a concern on the key vacant positions as that of the Chief Financial Officer. The AG recently pinpointed the co-relations between misstatements and instability of key management positions, it was learnt.
Long serving Head of Department, Hanli Du Plessis was reportedly found wanting as she admitted to have failed to take the executing authority into confidence on the contents of the Special Investigating Unit investigation report to date. The department undertook to implement the resolutions and heed all the advice with the objective of finally getting a clean audit .
The committee ordered the department to submit a detailed report on irregular expenditure for the previous financial years, report on the disciplinary steps on recovering of the money from the officials and report on how the department is going to deal with contingent liabilities by tomorrow (Friday).

Story: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za