The Auditor-General is in a tussle with the Minister of Transport and the Road Accident Fund over their efforts to prevent the release of the audit findings into RAF’s performance in the 2020-21 financial year, writes MedicalBrief.
The AG, Tsakani Maluleke, has written to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, telling Parliament that she submitted the RAF)audit report for the 2020-21 financial year, despite the fund going to great lengths to prevent its publication.
However, Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula said in his own letter that he could not table the RAF annual report and financial statements because of changes in the entity’s accounting policy where it relates to claims liabilities.
Fin24 reports that in June last year, the RAF announced that it had cut its liabilities by more than R300bn by simply changing an accounting policy. In her letter to Nqakula, Maluleke said her office evaluated the change in accounting policy and concluded that it was inappropriate.
In February, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) dismissed a case by the RAF to prevent the publication of the audit report. Maluleke said the RAF applied for leave to appeal that judgment and sought to review the audit report in what she says has been a protracted, delayed process.
“At the date of signing this correspondence, I am advised that there is nothing in law preventing me from publishing the audit report if not tabled by the executive authority,” Maluleke said.
The AG said if Parliament has not tabled the report within a month after its first sitting after an AG submits it, the AG must promptly publish the report. In the Fin24 report, she said she wrote to RAF management indicating to them that the Public Finance Management Act and the Public Audit Act required her to release the audit report, to which RAF management replied that they had already written to Parliament explaining the reasons for the delay. However, Mbalula wrote in his own letter to the Speaker that the RAF advised him that it was unable to comply with the PFMA to submit its annual report and audited financial statements to him for tabling in Parliament.
Mbalula maintained that a review application was before the courts and that “the outcome may materially affect the content and the conclusions of the report”.
Fin24 article – Mbalula and Auditor General at odds over delayed RAF audit report (Open access)
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