Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu launched six of the guides during a webinar on Wednesday.
FILE: Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu. Picture: GCIS
CAPE TOWN – The Office of the Auditor-General (AG) has published new guides on preventative controls aimed at strengthening the country’s public finances.
Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu launched six of the guides during a webinar on Wednesday.
They are intended to help accounting officers in government departments, entities and at municipalities ensure that measures are in place to prevent fraud, corruption and other abuse of public resources.
The guides are essentially handbooks on good governance and oversight for accounting officers across the state, with the aim of building a stronger culture of controls and consequences in the realm of public finance.
Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane’s welcomed the move.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a widespread illness – and obviously gross corruption, because we have failed to effectively manage public finances in the way that we should. And these guides will definitely help us achieve that…”
Makwetu said prevention is better than cure: “We step forward when the rest of our citizens are crying foul for the misuse of the resources that are so desperately needed by all of us, not only in the context of COVID but also in the context of the acquisition of various assets by our country and our government but (where) in most instances we do not see those assets translating into real economic benefits for all of us.
“Hence this attempt to put these guides together – to make sure that nobody can turn around and say, ‘I did not know’.”