South Africa Government

04/05/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 04/06/2021 02:06

Premier Sihle Zikalala welcomes Auditor-General report on improvements in Kwazulu-Natal

KZN Premier Sihle Zikalala has welcomed the latest Report from the Auditor-General which points to marked improvement in audit outcomes for the provincial government departments.

While the AG's report has pointed to existing risks such as the payment of Izinduna and medical claims against the Department of Health, overall the AG Report is proof that the province is managing its funds well.

This time last year at the release of the 2018/2019 outcomes Premier Zikalala pledged to deliver a qualitatively better and improved AG result.

This year's improvement for the 2019/2020 financial year came about because of persistent and consistent work led by the Premier and the Provincial Executive Council to ensure that all departments improve on their performance and drastically reduce irregular and fruitless expenditure.

According to the latest AG report KZN report reflected improvement because of decisive interventions by the leadership. This led to improvement in at least five departments notably that of COGTA which has obtained a clean audit.

'We undertook that all departments that fell short in 2018/2019 needed to work on detailed audit improvement strategies and had to report progress on implementation regularly.

We assure the citizens of KwaZulu-Natal that we will continue to stretch everymuscle to ensure that we rebuild and stay on course to be a province that is characterised by clean audits and good governance.

'Operation Clean Audit has yielded results. We are pleased but we are equally aware that more work remains to be done before we can say that the entire province, including the Departments and State Owned Agencies received reports with no matters of emphasis. We want to continuously raise the bar as KZN.

Of importance to us is that we must be able to account for every cent that we have been charged to look after. Where budgets are allocated, they must be spent where they make the most effect and with increasing levels of efficiency,' said Premier Zikalala.

We congratulate MECs and the departments for the improvements registered.

For more information
Lennox Mabaso
Cell: 082 884 2403