Several government departments have come under fire in a report by Auditor-General Terrence Nombembe who found a series of irregularities, poor financial controls and reporting by departments.

Nombembe today released details of audit findings for the 2010/2011 financial year and revealed that while most government departments received unqualified reports, more needed to be done to improve supply chain practices and adherence to the Public Finance Management Act.

There were significant concerns in the prevention and detection of wasteful expenditure in several departments and the newly created Ministry of Women, Children and People with Disabilities.

“I cannot stress it enough. It’s clear that we still find there are instances where financial reporting is not where we would want it to be and this is contributing immensely in departments not getting clean audits,” Nombembe said.

He highlighted shortcomings in the manner in which contracts were managed, resulting in delays in payment, wastage and fruitless expenditure. Investigations were also conducted into the financial affairs of at least 23 departments and 48 public entities, with the report saying the investigations were an indication of a risk that internal controls were not being adhered to.

A list of departments were found to have either incurred fruitless expenditure or were involved in some kind of irregular expenditure leading to qualified opinions.

The Department of Economic Development incurred wasteful expenditure due to the cancellation of an overseas trip. Accommodation and flight tickets that were not cancelled on time led to unnecessary financial losses at the Department of Transport, while Home Affairs incurred unauthorised expenditure to overspending on settlements made to third parties.

Public Enterprises was commended for managing to sustain a “clean” administration by again receiving financially unqualified opinion with no findings suggesting non-compliance with the law and regulations.

The report says the weakness did not lie with the Department of Public Service and Administration but that individual departments were to blame for not addressing policy matters raised by the AG in previous assessments.

“It is therefore evident that the users of these policies, namely the individual departments and other entities, are the cause of the audit findings related to human resources and compensation management. These implementing departments have not addressed matters as required.”

The report has recommended that vacant positions be filled with competent staff in all government departments and public entities. It says effective audit committees should be in place to ensure effective governance structures such as internal audit and risk management.

“Non-compliance must have consequences and accountability must be enforced at all levels, leadership must set the tone of decisively dealing with such malpractice.”