Western Cape maintains top spot in provincial audit outcomes

The Auditor General of South Africa’s consolidated audit results for the 2019/20 financial year confirms that the Western Cape continues to be the top performing province in South Africa.

The Auditor General commended the Western Cape on our achievements in the report, noting that, “This was achieved during a troubled 2020 with disruptions to normal operations, by leadership setting a strong tone at the top to maintain a sound control environment – particularly effective preventative controls."

Key highlights from the Auditor General’s PFMA 2019/20 Consolidated General Report:

• In the Western Cape, 70% of departments and entities received clean audits, compared to the next best province, Gauteng, with 30% clean audits and the worst performing, the North West, with 4% clean audits.
   
• The Western Cape accounts for 14 of 44 (32%) provincial clean audit outcomes in the country.
   
• The Western Cape incurred no unauthorised expenditure, compared to the next best province, Limpopo, with R1.13 million in unauthorised expenditure and the worst performing province, the Eastern Cape, with R1.58 billion in unauthorised expenditure.
   
• The Western Cape only incurred R118 000 in fruitless and wasteful expenditure, compared to the next best province, Northern Cape, with R9.6 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure and the worst performing province, Gauteng, with R103.42 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
   
• The Western Cape only incurred R285 million in irregular expenditure, compared to the next best province, Eastern Cape, with R837.05 million in irregular expenditure and the worst performing province, Kwa-Zulu Natal, with R9.77 billion in irregular expenditure.

While not included by in the report due to the audit not being complete by the cut-off date for the report, the Western Cape Department of Health has done it again and received a clean audit for the second year in a row - the only health department in the country to do so.

The repeated success of the Western Cape, as cited by the Auditor General, can be attributed to, amongst others:

• The institutionalisation of controls that resulted in the reduction of irregular expenditure.
   
• Accounting officers and authorities should continue to hold senior management accountable to improve key disciplines in the area of the reliability of submitted performance reporting.
   
• Leadership oversight and accountability for commitments in collaboration with oversight committees to improve/maintain audit outcomes.

And so, I would like to thank all our departments and entities for their continued efforts to consistently prioritise good governance and improve on our financial management of public finances.

We are proud to have maintained our reputation as the best performing province in South Africa and we will continue to work hard to deliver clean governance for all those living in the Western Cape.

Listen to a soundbyte from David Maynier: