Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) has come out in full praise of the Auditor-General’s (AG) First Special Report on Flood Relief Funds that was issued on 31 August.
BLSA said it was heartened by the AG’s ongoing, independent outputs that speak truth to power with neither fear nor favour.
“Although the report’s findings demonstrate concerning shortcomings in government’s capacity to respond expeditiously to humanitarian interventions, business is encouraged by the excellent quality of the work emanating from the Auditor-General,” BLSA said in a statement.
According to BLSA CEO, Busi Mavuso, “The Auditor-General serves a fundamental role in our constitutional democracy, holding government to account and providing invaluable insights into the efficacy of our state institutions. We are heartened by the AG’s ongoing, independent outputs that speak truth to power with neither fear nor favour. This is indeed an organ of state that all South Africans should take great pride in. We commend, in particular, Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke’s capable stewardship of this critical pillar of our state apparatus.”
AG Tsakani Maluleke presented her “real-time” audit report to Parliament’s ad hoc committee on flood disaster relief and recovery from the April floods, in Pretoria on Wednesday.
The presentation concerned the funds allocated to the affected national departments, provinces and municipalities in the aftermath of the April/ May 2022 floods. The AG briefed the committee on May 25 on its intervention to prevent and detect weaknesses in controls and its plan to report on findings.
The first special report on Wednesday contained initiatives selected for auditing, including social relief, water and sanitation – water tanker services – school mobile units, repairs to government properties, human settlements and temporary residential units.
Maluleke said that compromised control environments, pre-existing system and process deficiencies, lack of capacity and inadequate intergovernmental co-ordination weakened delivery in even the best disaster response plans.
BLSA further said that it notes with regret the shortcomings in responses to the recent devastating floods and hopes that the AG’s report will catalyse improvements to both immediate and systemic processes to provide the necessary humanitarian relief and form the basis for expeditious rebuilding of affected areas.
BUSINESS REPORT