Staff at the Auditor-General's office are increasingly being subjected to threats and intimidation by government employees, Business Day reported. Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu reportedly told Parliament on Tuesday that government employees often try to undermine negative audit outcomes by using personal threats, intimidation and delaying the submission of documents.
He reportedly said that more and more state entities and departments delayed submitting financial statements to his office, and said government officials tried to place pressure on audit teams to change negative conclusions.
"The findings are communicated throughout the audit, even from previous years, but contestations appear only at the end of audits, when it becomes apparent that the audit won't change," he reportedly told MPs.
ANC MP Nthabiseng Khunou reportedly said departments and state entities were doing this because they knew there would be no consequences.
Meanwhile, Makwetu said the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), the South African Post Office (SAPO) and the SABC were the main contributors to irregular expenditure by state-owned entities in the 2016/17 financial year, Fin24 reported.
The biggest problems with irregular expenditure was that state-owned entities did not get three quotations during bidding, that the preference-point system was not applied, and that their tax affairs were not in order.
Chairperson for the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) Themba Godi reportedly expressed concern that SAA and Prasa had not submitted financial statements.
"These outcomes demonstrate that the lack of penalties for late submission or no submission poses a huge challenge for oversight bodies seeking redress in the management of finances in the public sector," said Godi.
And 11 percent of government departments faced "material uncertainty" about their ability to keep operating, News24 reported. This was double the amount of department from the previous year.
The Auditor-General also raised concerns about 698 employees at 24 government departments who were doing business with the state despite being prevented from doing so by law. A further 649 were awarded new contracts with government.