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The summary of audit outcomes for the 2009-10 financial year represents a glass which is still far from half full, and suggests that achieving the 2014 clean audit outcome target may yet be beyond some departments and entities. 11 out of 34 departments received qualified audits. The serial offenders are still offending but there are signs of improvement in the financial management of some national departments and public entities.

The Democratic Alliance will be pressing for the ministers of all 11 national departments with qualified audits to appear before Scopa together with their accounting officers.

The DA has drawn up a five year overview of audit outcomes. If you click on this link, it will take you to a full version of the table.

Here are 10 Key Facts:

• The good news: 23 of the 34 departments and entities received unqualified audits.
• The bad news: 11 of the 34 departments and entities received qualified audits.
• Hall of Fame: the best has been Public Enterprises which received five unqualified audits in a row, with 3 of them being ‘clean' (without matters), including in the last financial year.
• Hall of Shame: five departments are vying for the title of ‘worst department', each receiving qualified audits for every year of the past five years: Correctional Services, Defence, Home Affairs, Labour, and Rural Development and Land Reform.
• Perennial performers: over the last five years, 12 department and entities have received unqualified audits.
• Stumblers: after 4 years of steady unqualified audits, the departments of Communications and Social Development both earned qualified audits this year.
• Hope-givers: the department of Health and the Independent Complaints Directorate received their first unqualified audit in 5 years, while three other bodies received unqualified audits after a previous qualified one.
• Hope-busters: the department of Justice and Constitutional Development reverted back to a qualified audit after having broken its string of qualified audits with an unqualified one in the previous year.
• Clean Record: There were four ‘clean' audits (no emphases of matter), the highest tally over the last 5 years. These were obtained by Environmental Affairs and Tourism, International Relations and Cooperation, Public Enterprises and Statistics South Africa.
• Dirty Record: With 11 qualified audits, this ties the highest haul of negative opinions during the last 5 years.

Twenty-three national departments and entities have received qualified audits in total, with only four receiving completely clean audits. Eleven departments and entities received qualified opinions, one more than the previous year. One difference was that four departments that were previously qualified, including the Departments of Health and Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs have moved to an improved audit outcome. Unfortunately four other departments including Communications, Minerals and Energy, Social Development and Water Affairs and Forestry have now received qualified audits.

Of concern is the fact that the outcomes for departments with long histories of qualified audits, and especially Correctional Services, Defence, Justice and Constitutional Affairs, and Labour, continue to fall foul of the Auditor-General. Even the wholesale replacement of key personnel in these departments has not resulted in an instant turnaround and the challenges for the political leaderships of these departments remain to demonstrate their commitment to institutional change.

The main issues that will be of concern to oversight bodies such as Scopa will continue to be these bodies' failure to manage assets properly, which have also led to huge increases in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. At the recently held Association of Public Accounts conference it was repeated that Ministers must expect to be called to account for the performance of their departments, and the Democratic Alliance will be pressing for the ministers of all 11 national departments with qualified audits to appear before Scopa together with their accounting officers.