In the last financial year, the Western Cape’s 23 government departments and entities received 18 clean audits and 5 unqualified audits with findings. This is a much better performance than any other province and bears testimony to the only province governed by the Democratic Alliance. The rest of SA’s 9 provinces are run by the ANC.
The Auditor General singled out the efforts of the DA-run province, stating about the Western Cape that “political and administrative leadership set the tone for clean audit outcomes at all provincial cabinet meetings”.
In the Western Cape 78% of departments produced clean audits. Gauteng comes in at a very distant second place with 54%.
These results unfortunately show how the rest of the provinces under the ANC continue to be mismanaged. Eastern Cape, North West and Limpopo are in a particularly bad state, with only 15%, 3% and 4% of departments and entities receiving clean audits respectively.
It is of major concern that the National Government, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Limpopo regressed on their audit findings. The AG cited lack of internal control, political will and a major lack of consequences for offending accounting officers, as the reasons for failing to drive clean audit outcomes in ANC-run departments.
The fact of the matter is that if a government cannot manage its finances properly, it cannot deliver the services the people need.
