Extract from Auditor General, Consolidated General Report on the Provincial Audit Outcomes, December 2010:
Highlights of the current year's audit outcomes of departments are as follows:
The departments that were financially unqualified with no findings on either predetermined objectives or compliance with laws and regulations increased from four to 14. There was a 9% reduction in the number of qualified auditor's reports (qualified, adverse and disclaimer of opinions) during the year under review.
The most notable improvement in the audit outcomes of departments occurred in the Western Cape, where seven departments improved to financially unqualified with no findings on either predetermined objectives or compliance with laws and regulations.
The highest number of regressions in the audit outcomes of departments occurred in North West, where two departments regressed to a disclaimer of opinion and a further two regressed to a qualified opinion during the 2009-10 financial year, after being financially unqualified with findings on predetermined objectives and/or compliance with laws and regulations during 2008-09.
The 2007-08 and 2008-09 audits of the Eastern Cape's provincial revenue fund and the 2008-09 audit of Limpopo's provincial revenue fund had not been finalised by the date of this report.
Highlights of the current year's audit outcomes of public entities are as follows:
A 58% improvement occurred in the number of public entities with no findings on either predetermined objectives or compliance with laws and regulations (increasing from 19 to 30).
Five public entities in the Western Cape improved to financially unqualified with no findings on either predetermined objectives or compliance with laws and regulations.
Audit opinions in the disclaimer, adverse and qualified categories declined to constitute 19% (2008-09: 32%) of the entities whose financial statements were financially qualified.
Of the 108 public entities whose audits had been finalised, 37 improved on their previous year's audit outcome, while the audit outcomes of nine (8%) regressed.
The audit outcomes of 61 public entities remained unchanged from the 2008-09 financial year. This includes two that remained disclaimed or adverse and 12 that retained their status as financially unqualified with no findings on either predetermined objectives or compliance with laws and regulations.
The financial statements of 13 public entities have now been qualified (disclaimer, adverse and qualified) for the third successive year. The names of their parent departments, which should be providing oversight, are provided in section 3.1 of this report.
The number of qualified audit opinions obtained by public entities decreased by 25. However, the finalization of the audits of 22 public entities could affect the total decrease in qualified opinions for the year.
The audits of eight public entities are still outstanding since the 2008-09 financial year.
An overview of the 2009-10 audit outcomes per province is provided below.
|
Province |
Disclaimer |
Adverse |
Qualified |
Financially unqualified with findings* |
Financially unqualified with no findings** |
Total number of entities |
||||||
|
09-10 |
08-09 |
09-10 |
08-09 |
09-10 |
08-09 |
09-10 |
08-09 |
09-10 |
08-09 |
09-10 |
08-09 |
|
|
Eastern Cape |
2 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
5 |
5 |
16 |
18 |
3 |
0 |
26 |
26 |
|
Free State |
2 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
5 |
7 |
12 |
14 |
8 |
7 |
27 |
29 |
|
Gauteng |
4 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
11 |
23 |
20 |
11 |
4 |
41 |
39 |
|
KwaZulu-Natal |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
9 |
13 |
19 |
21 |
6 |
5 |
34 |
41 |
|
Limpopo |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
6 |
12 |
10 |
1 |
1 |
17 |
18 |
|
Mpumalanga |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
14 |
17 |
3 |
1 |
19 |
21 |
|
Northern Cape |
2 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
4 |
6 |
10 |
10 |
0 |
0 |
17 |
19 |
|
North West |
4 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
7 |
15 |
12 |
0 |
5 |
25 |
29 |
|
Western Cape |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
13 |
23 |
12 |
0 |
25 |
27 |
|
Total number of audits reported on |
15 |
16 |
1 |
4 |
37 |
61 |
134 |
145 |
44 |
23 |
231 |
249 |
|
*Financially unqualified with findings on predetermined objectives and/or compliance with laws and regulations |
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|
**Financially unqualified with no findings on predetermined objectives and/or compliance with laws and regulations |
||||||||||||
The financial statements of all the Western Cape's entities and 83% of entities in Gauteng were financially unqualified.
The Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and North West registered a decrease in the number of entities whose financial statements were financially unqualified.
Issued by the Auditor General of South Africa (see full document here - PDF), January 20 2011
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