Scopa welcomes signing of Public Audit Amendment Bill

The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) in Parliament has welcomed President Cyril Ramaphosa‘s signing of the Public Audit Amendment Bill into law.

Scopa chairperson Themba Godi says the committee is happy that the Auditor-General can act against those who waste public funds and those who fail to act against persons implicated in deliberately wasting taxpayers’ money.

The legislation will strengthen the powers of the Auditor- General.

It includes recovering money from implicated officials.

Godi says, “The major problem in government is that when irregular or fruitless and wasteful expenditure has been identified by the auditor general, the accounting officers or authorities don’t investigate this. If you take the SABC for example, you have almost R5 billion worth of irregular expenditure. That has not been investigated. People have not been held accountable, monies have not been recovered, because there is no-one to enforce it. The Audit Amendment Act passed, it means the Auditor General will actually force the leadership of the SABC to investigate this, failing which, they will be held in their personal capacity liable for the monies that have been lost,” Godi explains.