Makwetu: Auditors faced threats, intimidation over findings
26 June 2019
Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu has raised concerns about how his team faced threats and intimidation while conducting their audit work in different municipalities throughout the country.
Releasing the 2017/2018 municipal audit results in Pretoria on Wednesday, Makwetu said the team faced difficulties and that the audit environment became more "hostile with increased contestation of audit findings and pushbacks whereby our audit processes and the motives of our audit teams were questioned".
He said in some of the municipalities pressure was placed on audit teams to change conclusions in order to avoid negative audit outcomes or the disclosure of irregular expenditure.
"Instances of threats to and intimidation of our auditors were also experienced in most of the provinces," he said.