The Democratic Alliance (DA) has proposed far-reaching measures to improve the management of public finances, including an emergency task team and legislative amendments.
”The management of public money by government in our country is unacceptably poor, and in some cases abysmal,” DA CEO Ryan Coetzee told a media briefing at Parliament on Thursday.
Even more concerning was the fact that the situation was not improving, and deteriorated even further this year, he said.
An overview of the audit outcomes of government departments over the past five financial years proved that too many ministers and directors general were simply unable to provide proper financial management of public money.
”Indeed, in many cases, the overview paints a picture of financial disarray and mismanagement on a grand scale.”
Of the 167 annual audits conducted by the auditor general on the 34 government departments and public entities from 2001/2 to 2005/06, there were only ten ”clean reports”.
A total of 146 reports had an ”emphasis of the matter”, while 46 were ”qualified”, received an ”adverse opinion”, or a ”disclaimer”.
Entities receiving qualified reports, adverse opinions or a disclaimer were deemed to be in a state of financial disarray and mismanagement, while an ”emphasis of the matter” meant they failed to comply with their agreed programme of action or statutory requirements.
Serious financial mismanagement had two consequences — efficient service delivery was compromised, resulting in people suffering, and public confidence in the state was also undermined, compromising the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the public. Coetzee said the DA proposed placing greater focus on financial management through legislative change.
The auditor general’s audit reports on the consolidated financial statements of departments and public entities now reached Parliament, at best, one month after being received by the relevant minister.
The reports were submitted as part of a comprehensive annual report publication, meaning the financial management of the departments concerned was not given exclusive attention.
The Public Finance Management Act should be amended so that the auditor general submitted his audit reports to Parliament as soon as they were ready, separate from the departmental annual reports.
Further, in cases where the auditor general expressed either a qualified and/or an adverse audit opinion three times in a row, a steering committee, led by the director general for the Office of the Public Service Commission, should be established to assess the situation, such as happened with home affairs.
The committee should then appoint a team of consultants, either from other government departments or from the private sector, to intervene and turn the problem department around.
The committee should also have the power to remove and replace any non-performing departmental officials on the recommendation of the consulting team, Coetzee said. — Sapa