The Auditor-General has revealed that about R12 billion was lost through material irregularity because officials failed to act quickly against corruption in departments and entities.
Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke, said while they were able to save R1bn that could have been lost through material irregularity, R12bn was lost because of failure by officials to act quickly after the problem was identified by auditors.
She said when her office alerts departments and entities, accounting officers are not quick to act. They wait until the Auditor-General has issued material irregularities in her reports, before they start to take action, by which time it is too late.
Maluleke was on Friday briefing members of Parliament’s standing committee on the auditor-general on material irregularities in departments and entities.
She said since she was given powers in line with the Public Audit Act in 2019, her office has been able to tighten measures to prevent losses in the State.
“If you look at the PFMA (Public Finance Management Act) report, we were able to save over R1bn. This was at the end of the 2022 audit. We will come and indicate to you what the numbers look like for the 2023 audits.
“As a result of our work, controls are being improved, disciplinary processes are happening, investigations are happening and contracts are being stopped. The one thing I would want to highlight is that, we said no actions were being taken to address matters we raised in at least 82% of the cases.
“What we are saying is that the matters we raised, it took an MI (material irregularity) for an accounting officer to act on something they should have been acting on anyway, which is the point around how we’ve got to get accounting officers to act quickly when things are being picked up, either by internal audit or auditor-general,” said Maluleke.
“If you look at 169 material irregularities where we can attach financial loss, the financial loss we were able to estimate is at R12bn.
“If you look at losses prevented or recovered, it is sitting at R1bn. You have lost R12bn, you can only collect R1bn. That is what happened because we take too long to deal with matters,” said Maluleke.
She said it was better to prevent problems in the first place by acting quickly than ending up incurring huge losses.
Senior officials should not have to wait for too long before they can act.
If the office of the Auditor-General or internal audit pick up problems, accounting officers have to act quickly to prevent losses.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
Politics