Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke today reported significant deficiencies in the procurement and contract management processes of the relief package government redirected in response to the covid-19, but applauded government’s ongoing efforts in fighting the pandemic.
Releasing the national audit office’s second real-time audit report on government’s covid-19 expenditure, the AG acknowledged that in response to the pandemic government had to react quickly and decisively in uncertain times and in an already compromised control environment. However, she believes the country “could have achieved more if the funds and related initiatives had been managed better”. Maluleke describes the report as “an opportunity to learn from what played out and use it to strengthen government’s service offerings to the citizens of the country in the longer run”.
The latest report would have been the last audit report of the late AG Kimi Makwetu before leaving office. His fixed term as AG would have ended on 30 November 2020, were it not for his untimely death on 11 November. Maluleke, whose seven-year fixed term as head of the country’s supreme audit institution started last week (1 December), says her office dedicates the report to Makwetu “as he passed on while making the final touches on what last governance messages he wanted to share with the country through this report before he left office. As such, in releasing it today, we have become his mouthpiece – conveying the final wisdom and patriotic counsel he left for our country”.
Download the full report here: Second special report on financial management of government’s Covid19 inititatives
