Cape Town – Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke said the message from her office on components of “accountability eco-system” in government playing their part was heeded in the real-time audit of the disaster funds.
Briefing the ad hoc joint committee on flood disaster relief and recovery in Pretoria, Maluleke said her office has kept on talking about the need for each component in the “accountability eco-system” to deal with their mandates effectively.
“What is pleasing in the context of the disaster is that our message on the accountability ecosystem, where everybody does their part, is heeded.
“We are seeing that accounting officers and executive authorities are listening and acting,” she said.
Maluleke also said they have seen a very interesting development in that KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Treasury did not leave eThekwini Metro on its own.
“The provincial government set about ensuring that they play their part in the journey in safeguarding resources and guaranteeing there is value for money.
“The KwaZulu-Natal Treasury set a process to conduct pre-award assessments on procurement that is above R1 million. It is something never seen before,” she said.
Maluleke said it was something her office recognised as an initiative run by a sphere supporting another in driving accountability.
“We have seen the internal audit in KwaZulu-Natal doing work around departments and supporting the journey of making sure programmes are run in a way consistent with accountability and protection of public resources and value for money. It is something we should recognise and continue to build on.”
She also said there has been establishment of monitoring and oversight at both the provincial and national government levels, with Parliament setting up the ad hoc committee.
“The National Assembly has a direct role to play in how these initiatives are rolled out.”
Maluleke noted that there was good work to establish monitoring and oversight.
“While the ecosystem moves in the right direction on monitoring and oversight initiative, what is needed is to drive efficiency in terms of the initiatives.”
Maluleke also said there were some good practices that needed to be built on arising from the oversight at different levels of government.
“National Treasury provided early guidance on availability of funds, reporting requirements and process of reprioritising funds.
“KwaZulu-Natal’s internal audit had the impact of reducing procurement irregularities findings.”
She said although some people felt that it took long for procurement to be done, there should be recognition that the Constitution made no allowance for an opt-out of either efficiency or accountability.
“You still have to have controls and efficiency, but we have to find a way that these things work together and co-exist to meet those constitutional imperatives.”
Maluleke said the KZN internal audit was active in monitoring the temporary residential units (TRUs) before payments were made to suppliers, and assessed the TRUs and was able to identify areas where there were quality problems.
“That allowed an opportunity for government to prevent payouts before contractors met obligations.”
Maluleke also said they have been quite impressed by the social relief processes.
“That sector heeded many findings we had in respect of Covid-19 because they implemented key controls that were necessary.
“We did not find too many invalid payments. That is something to be acknowledged because where there is responsiveness by those who run public institutions, you get gradual strengthening of controls and performance,” she said.
Maluleke also said as they conducted the real-time audits on disaster relief funds, accounting officers were receptive of their audit findings and adopted recommendations and gave commitment to implement those recommendations.
Cape Times