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The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) must call Auditor General (AG) Terence Nombembe to Parliament to discuss his concerns regarding financial management in the public sector and the vulnerability of his office.

In a speech last week, the AG said that the management of supply chains, service delivery and the accuracy of government reports were deteriorating. He attributed this to the fact that staff are not “prepared and equipped” to do their work and to the absence of a culture of accountability. Most worryingly, the AG expressed concern about the vulnerability of his office due to a growing lack of response from government to his warnings about the deterioration of the “pillars of governance protecting South Africa’s democracy”.

In terms of Section 188 of the Constitution, the AG reports on the financial management and financial statements of all government departments, municipalities and institutions receiving funds from the public purse. SCOPA is the parliamentary body, and thus the representative of the people, that has oversight over all public spending.

If the government is not taking the AG’s office seriously, SCOPA certainly must.

I will be requesting the SCOPA chairperson, Themba Godi, to call the AG to the committee to discuss both his concerns and the ways in which he feels public finance management and accountability can be improved.

As a member of SCOPA, I can confirm that many national ministers certainly do not take their role in the financial management of their departments very seriously. Just today, neither the Minister nor the Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources attended SCOPA’s hearing on their department’s Annual Reports and Financial Statements for 2010/11. Both the Ministers of Rural Development and Land Reform (Gugile Nkwinti) and Higher Education (Blade Nzimande) snubbed SCOPA hearings despite significant problems in the financial management of their departments, which required explanation.

I have requested the lack of political accountability displayed through the absence of Ministers at SCOPA hearings to be noted in the committee’s report to Parliament.

The culture of impunity in the face of poor outcomes and the practice of looking the other way when the public purse is pilfered will only be reversed if the importance of good governance is recognised at all levels of government. Entities involved in oversight over public spending must cooperate to effect a turnaround. SCOPA and the AG have much to discuss.