Head of the Auditor General's office in the EC, Singa Ngqwala

The head of the Auditor General’s office in the Eastern Cape Province Singa Ngqwala, told the municipal officials and Councillors that they need to help his office in order for them to assist the Municipalities in improving the AG’s opinion. He also said, “we are not out to get you”.

He said contrary to the popular belief that the AG’s office is meant to punish Municipalities, it is meant to help them. He said there are benefits for Municipalities to obtaining a favourable opinion form the AG, like attracting investors.

Ngqwala was invited by the Municipality to address both the political and administration heads in order to assist the Municipality to improve the Auditor General’s opinion. For the previous financial year the Municipality received an adverse opinion.

Ngqwala said it was unacceptable for the Municipality with all the resources at its disposal to regress on its opinion. He said the Municipality should make use of institutions like Rhodes to turn things around. He also said it was very easy to obtain an unqualified report.

He said the Municipality is guaranteed to obtain an improved opinion if it started by addressing issues that were raised in reports of previous years. The issues raised ranged from lack of supporting documents, untraceable assets, procurement policies not followed. 

He said it was a wrong perception to think that only the finance personnel was responsible for finances, he said all “programme managers are responsible. He said what was key to getting a positive result from the AG is monitoring, supervision, and filing, just to name a few.

In his presentation he tabled ways to “obtain, address and prevent deterioration in audit outcomes”
- The right leadership tone is necessary to establish a strong control environment with a high level of compliance.
- Prioritise on which issues need attention and set up a detailed action plan to address these issues which should be monitored on a continuous basis.
- Knowledge and skills should be transferred when using consultants by involving the leadership and staff of the Municipalities during the process.

The Executive Mayor, Cllr. V. Lwana reiterated his commitment and that of all the Councillors of ensuring that in the not so distant future, the municipality will get an unqualified report.