Auditor General highlights the impact of accountability failures at joint UWC-UCT seminar

In his address the Auditor General specifically highlighted the impact of accountability failures. He also highlighted some of the challenges the AG’s office is facing as accountability and transparency are not yet enabled through credible financial and performance reporting. He argued that people tend to engage in corruption when the possibility of getting caught is small, the penalty is mild, and the pay-off is large.

The AG also highlighted some of the current interventions in process to enhance and strengthen the role of his office. This includes the Public Audit Amendment Bill adopted unanimously by the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces and currently awaiting the President’s signature. The key aspects of the AG’s mandate to be expanded will include the referring of material irregularities to relevant public bodies for further investigation. Further strengthening of the AG’s mandate will include binding remedial action for failure to implement the AG’s recommendations as well as the ability to issue a certificate of debt for failure to implement AG’s recommendations if there was financial loss involved.

The seminar included panel discussions between the Auditor General, Ms. Fazela Mohamed (Integrity Commissioner: North West Provincial Legislature  and former Registrar of Members' Interest, Parliament), Prof Nico Steytler (SARChI Chair in Multilevel Government, Law and Policy), Dr Phindile Ntliziywana (UCT) and Prof Derek Powell (ACSL, DOI). The focus of this seminar was on the enforcement of public finance laws in a context of massive failures of compliance, professionalism and ethics at all levels, in spite of a legal framework admired across the world. 

The panel discussions, that followed the AG’s keynote address, grappled with the following questions: Why is compliance with the public finance legislation and ethics essential for building a capable developmental state? What are the causes of persistent non-compliance, and how can enforcement be improved? What needs to happen for a culture of compliance, professionalism and ethics to take root in financial governance?

The seminar series creates an opportunity to bring practitioners, staff and students who work on local government and public finance law into conversation about the problem of persistent non-compliance with national audit rules. It creates a space for meaningful conversations about how to help build the capability of local government to provide efficient and accountable local administration.