kougademocrat

The quality of Kouga Municipality’s financial statements is poor, with the Municipality relying on the Auditor General to detect and correct material misstatements, according to a report released last week by the AG.

The AG has also criticised the fact that the staff organogram has still not been updated or approved, to ensure the Kouga Municipality can meet its service delivery objectives.

Despite the Kouga Council claiming it does not have cash flow problems, the AG has yet again identified significant restraints regarding the cash flow, which resulted in no change in the financial health of the Municipality.

“Kouga Municipality must produce monthly and quarterly reports and financial statements that are accurate, complete and supported by adequate documents,” said the AG in the report.

The Mayor, of Kouga, Mr Booi Koerat was also criticised by the AG as meetings with him led to a minimal impact on the audit outcome.

The Kouga Municipality received a qualified audit report once again for the previous financial year.

The level of assurance provided by the Kouga Council was also limited by the credibility of information provided to them by the administration according to the AG.

The roles of the Audit Committee and the Internal Audit function were also queried by the AG, especially as the internal audit unit did not have an independent reporting channel.

“It is pleasing to note that the Auditor General only made one finding when it comes to the Supply Chain Management, which gives reasonable assurance that corruption is not occurring when it comes to tenders,” said DA Councillor Brenton Williams.

“However, the DA has been requesting proper financial statement to be presented to Council on a regular basis, which simply does not happen.

The only time we as Council receive financial statements is when the Auditor General’s annual report is tabled, which is unacceptable,” added Williams.

The AG also mentioned that there is a lack of consequence for poor performance of officials as well as transgressions committed by them.

Tags: kouga audit report

This entry was posted on August 7, 2014 at 9:38 am and is filed under DA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.