The University of Johannesburg (UJ) School of Accounting in the College of Business and Economics has been awarded an R11-million grant to invest in the improvement of audit outcomes in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges.

The grant was provided by the Education, Training and Development Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) and the Financial Services Seta.

The faculty will use the grant to enhance its short-learning programme offerings and training opportunities in the public sector.

The grant will be used to offer the short-learning developing programmes in supply chain auditing, risk management, public sector accounting, internal auditing and financial controls, performance management and compliance auditing, the university says.

As part of the grant, the school will offer mentorship in public sector accounting, risk management, internal audit and financial controls, as well as the supply chain management to relevant TVET college finance professionals.

“This grant will allow us to develop the interventions that will assist the TVET colleges in improving their financial management skills, which is expected to improve the audit outcomes subsequently.

"UJ will provide support to 400 TVET colleges' finance personnel. Additionally, those TVET colleges with a qualified report, disclaimer report, or an adverse audit report, will benefit from mentoring,” UJ Department of Accountancy's Professor Tankiso Moloi says.

“This timely support will help us attain our mission of providing support to government and industry. We look forward to building on this partnership with the Setas,” adds UJ College of Business and Economics executive dean Professor Daneel van Lil.

“This funding helps tremendously in our efforts to also strengthen the digital competencies of our students. Our team is excited to be part of the national efforts to improve financial management in the public sector, specifically in the TVET colleges.

“We hope that the cohort of students from these programmes will go all the way to improve their respective systems of financial management and governance, which we hope will result in the decline in unauthorised expenditure, irregular expenditure, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” says Moloi.