FINANCE minister Mthuli Ncube is sitting on the Auditor-General’s 2019 audit reports for ministries, departments and state enterprises which have been ready for tabling in Parliament for weeks.
BRIDGET MANANAVIRE
While the Covid-19 lockdowns disrupted work on audits, the Auditor-General’s Office confirmed that the reports, which must be released on time as stipulated in the Public Finance Management Act, were ready.
Auditor-General Mildred Chiri is required by law to prepare and submit a report of all government books to the Finance minister who then tables the report in Parliament, no later than 30 June each year, according to Section 309 (2) of the Constitution, as read with Section 10 of the Audit Office Act [Chapter 22:18].
In an Economic Governance Watch notice, legal affairs think-tank Veritas said the law was clear on timelines which Ncube is guided by to table the audit reports in Parliament.
“All the Auditor-General’s reports must be laid before Parliament by the Minister to whom they were sent, within seven sitting days after the Minister received them. If the Minister does not do so, then the Auditor-General must send them to the Speaker, who will lay them before Parliament,” the notice reads.
“Under section 12 of the (Audit Office) Act, every minister who receives a report must lay it before the Assembly on one of the seven days the Assembly next sits after the Minister received the report, and if the Minister fails to do this the Auditor-General must transmit a copy of the report to the Speaker for the Speaker to lay it before the Assembly. The Act does not lay down a time-limit for the Speaker to do this, but obviously he must do it within a reasonable time.”
Chiri has in past reports exposed rampant abuse of funds and mismanagement in government departments and parastatals. However, no stern action has been taken against the illegalities.
Asked about the reports by The NewsHawks last month, Chiri said she could not reveal the findings of the audits before the minister tables them in Parliament.
“The 2019 audit reports are ready for tabling before Parliament by the minister. And we are in the process of finalising the 2020 reports,” Chiri told The NewsHawks on 18 May.
“We start auditing books after December closing of books and this normally takes up to March. We had challenges with the 2019 as well as the 2020 books because of Covid. The way we do it is we have to do it with the client in order to interrogate how things are managed. We could not carry out face-to-face interviews because of Covid and our systems are not automated.”
Finance ministry chief director of communications Clive Mphambela said it was parliament’s duty to call the minister to table the audit reports.
“Parliament is the one that sets the date for the minister to table the reports and the minister is then called to table them, so you can check with Parliament,” Mphambela said.
