Billions lost and wasted: Makwetu urges leaders to entrench culture of accountability

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Billions lost and wasted: Makwetu urges leaders to entrench culture of accountability
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Billions lost and wasted: Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu urges leaders to entrench culture of accountability

Despite being given an expanded public sector audit mandate to refer suspected irregularities to chapter 9 institutions equipped with investigative and prosecutorial powers, Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu’s latest audit report still highlighted noncompliance and irregular expenditure of R62.6 billion.In his defence, Makwetu told City Press this week that the new powers were still kicking in, having only come into effect on April 1 this year.

Material irregularity includes any fraud, theft, breach of a fiduciary duty or non-compliance with or contravention of the law that could result in a material loss to a public sector institution or the public. This was done through the Auditor-General’s office issuing personal debt certificates that would result in them paying out of their own pockets should they fail to account for the funds.

He urged provincial and national governments to “entrench a culture of accountability, revisit and abide by the pre-emptive provisions prescribed in the Public Finance Management Act to ensure that they deliver good financial governance”. “Solutions to the existing culture of non-compliance and irregular expenditure need not be reimagined or developed. Its regulations are already in existence but, for whatever reasons, many people have not activated them,” said Makwetu.The Auditor-General said the Western Cape was doing well “because of the role that the leadership in the different portfolios in the province has played when it comes to monitoring and following up on financial management matters”.

“They [accounting officers] don’t go to that meeting if they have no well-cooked plan to deal with whatever financial deficiency that they may have encountered.

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