Briefing Parliament's financial watchdog committee (Scopa), Accountant General Freeman Nomvalo said the fact that certain departments failed to co-operate with Treasury in the training of accounting personnel was proof that government officials had a low regard for accounting.

"They send people with no basic understanding of accounting to courses just to ensure that the department was represented at the training," he said.

Some of the students sent to Treasury's accounting courses did not work in the accounting section at all. Nomvalo made his remarks at a time when the number of government
departments receiving qualified reports was on the increase.

A total of 11 out of 34 national government departments received a qualified audit reports for the past financial year, as did half of the 108 provincial departments.

The Auditor-General Terence Nombembe attributed the current high number of qualified reports to government leaders' failure to monitor their departments' financial affairs.

"A change of attitude in leadership is important; they need to get involved instead of just hoping for the best" he said. Most government leaders only came to know about financial mismanagement taking place in their departments long after the damage had been done, and in some instances after culprits had even resigned.

Nombembe said Treasury was in the process of finalising a checklist which government leaders could use to monitor their departments' financial affairs. "This will help facilitate better monitoring so that they could ask
the right questions at the right level," he said.