RED FLAG: The Department of Public Enterprises failing to implement a proper financial management system with credible financial reports…

By Lehlohonolo Lehana

The ongoing failure of government entities to respond swiftly to auditing red flags meant the state was unable to recover vast sums in financial losses, says Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke.

Maluleke briefed Parliament’s Standing Committee on the Auditor-General on the 2022-23 Integrated Annual Report. Last month, the Department of Public Enterprises received a grim audit report from the Auditor-General, which highlighted stagnant outcomes with no notable improvement.

The DPE, which is led by Minister Pravin Gordhan oversees seven entities, Eskom, Transnet, South African Airways (SAA), Alexcor, Denel, the South African Forestry Company Limited (Safcol), and SA Express.

There were no clean audits and the DPE received a qualified audit, but there were 63% worth of outstanding audits, from five of the seven entities. This was six months after the close of the financial year. The report added that DPE was failing to implement a proper financial management system with credible reports.

The AG said the key contributors to the audit outcomes were instability in leadership and high vacancy rates in key positions, ineffective audit action and turnaround plans, or record keeping resulting in limitations of scope, lack of accountability on improvement in financial and performance reporting, and poor consequence management on compliance with legislation and poor credible financial reporting.

Maluleke told Parliament that it remains the case. “The state-owned entities are the once that still struggle to get to clean audit and even unqualified. “So, the focus of our message, when we did the Public Finance Management Act, was to highlight that there is a long way to go before SOEs have a PFMA budget that is characterised by good financial management, good performance, and ongoing transparency and accountability,” she said.

Maluleke said poor-quality statements, fraud, and corruption remain an ongoing challenge in the public sector.

“The poor quality of the annual financial statements and performance reports submitted by many of our auditees continue to absorb valuable audit time. “Pushbacks and litigation often compromise our ability to meet our legislated deadlines and cause us to deploy scarce resources toward legal fees. “We are faced with the continuous misuse of state resources.

“We are determined to provide insights and transparency on indicators of fraud, corruption, and state capture that we detect through our audits,” she said. Maluleke also said there has been no improvement when it came to the affairs of local government. In 2020-21, only 16% of the country’s 257 municipalities were given a clean audit by the AGSA.

“The metros are not doing as well as they should, and that was crucial given their impact on the budget but also their impact on the number of households that they serve.”

Maluleke said while there hasn’t been anything unusual, the threats were ongoing as they audit the books of poor-performing municipalities ravaged by material irregularities, EWN reports.  Maluleke said she was concerned that their auditors continue to receive threats and intimidation as they audit state entities.

She said while there hasn’t been anything unusual, the threats were ongoing as they audited the books of poor-performing municipalities ravaged by material irregularities. Maluleke told MPs that municipalities had racked up material irregularities amounting to over R5 billion.

She said these material irregularities are related to non-compliance or suspected fraud. But in the course of their audits, she said officials continued to receive threats.

“Some of it comes as intimidation, which we then deal with and some of it does come as threats to individuals.

Thus far, there hasn’t been anything unusual in terms of the types of items we have to deal with but it is still of concern that some of our auditors still get threatened.”

On the material irregularities, she said they identified 268 out of 170 auditees or municipalities. But she said they were able to get R182 million back into the fiscus. – www.fullview.co.za and additional information by EWN

Military veterans receive special pensions

ELIGIBLE:  Veterans urged to apply for the benefit and submit applications as the first batch of approved applicants received their grants on November 1…

By SA News

The Department of Defence and Military Veterans has announced that the first batch of approved military veteran pension applicants received their first payment on Wednesday.

However, the department stated that the recipients will be getting their payments at the end of each month.

This comes after Defence and Military Veterans Minister Thandi Modise promulgated the Military Veterans Regulations on October 6 2023 through the government gazette, which was followed by the Government Pension Administration Agency (GPAA) opening the admission and processing of prospective pension beneficiaries.

Defence and Military Veterans Deputy Minister, Thabang Makwetla, said he was pleased that the payment of pension benefits to eligible military veterans has already begun.  The Presidential Task Team (PTT), according to the department, had been seized with this process since its establishment by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The PTT in consultation with Military Veterans Associations, the department, and GPAA have been hard at work to ensure that the disbursement of the pension benefit is paid out to all deserving military veterans.

“Today marks the beginning of yet another important milestone in our ongoing efforts to address the plight of military veterans in accordance with the provision of the Military Veterans Act No 18 of 2011,” said Makwetla.

In addition, the GPAA Director of Special Pensions, Kabelo Jonathan, explained that military veterans should note that payments will be made from the date of approval of applications.

He said all applicants who have been contacted by GPAA are required to submit the bank forms (Z894), bank statements and other relevant documents for prompt processing and payment of the military veterans pension. To date, 18 119 applications have been received for the pension benefit of military veterans.Military veterans are urged to apply for the pension benefit and submit applications to the GPAA via milvet.applications@gpaa.gov.za, milvet.enquries@gpaa.gov.za or 0800 11 7669. – SAnews.gov.za