Supply chain management and irregular expenditure remain a concern with regards to local government, according to Mr Thembekile Kimi Makwetu, Auditor-General of South Africa. He presented a public lecture around these issues at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) on Wednesday, 30 July 2014.
Reflecting on the role of accounting professionals in improving accountability and governance in municipalities and other government entities, Mr Makwetu highlighted that only 30 out of 319 municipalities received clean audits in the 2012/2013 Financial Audit, mainly due to incompetence of individuals holding financial positions in local government and beyond.
“Extensive support needs to be provided to municipalities to improve their accountability and governance,” said Mr Makwetu. “We need to ensure continued skills advancement and that inter-governmental discipline procedures are in place. The instability within municipalities has led to the lack of accountability as there is no continuity due to missing documents and disclaimers from previous years. This is necessary to ensure good financial governance.”
The public lecture was hosted by the University’s Faculty of Economic and Financial Sciences.