Embattled State-owned entities such as the South African Post Office (SAPO), the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) once again fared poorly in the yearly audits of South Africa’s Auditor-General (AG), Kimi Makwetu, who puts this down to “weaknesses in leadership and governance”.
The AG audits 10 of the 21 major public entities. Of these State-owned entities, the Armaments Corporation of South Africa was the only company that achieved a clean audit, sustained from the previous year.
The Independent Development Trust again received a disclaimer of audit opinion, while SAPO and the SABC again received qualified audit opinions.
The remainder of the State-owned entities, including ACSA, had material findings on compliance, which kept them from achieving a clean audit opinion.
Makwetu further noted that ACSA, the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation and SAPO submitted their financial statements late, while the audit of South African Express was in progress, also as a result of the late submission of its audit information.
“Financial sustainability remained the main concern for the State-owned entities – uncertainties about the ability of some State-owned entities to continue operations also delayed the audits, as we needed evidence that they could be reported as a going concern,” he stated.
Makwetu added that instability at board level, vacancies in key positions, inadequate consequence management, poor monitoring, as well as oversight of financial and performance management and major procurement processes had also led to the poor reviews.
Further, the AG rated the financial health of 39% of public entities as either "concerning" or "requiring intervention" – indicating another regression.