KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Sihle Zikalala, has reaffirmed his office’s commitment to beef up the state’s capacity and capability to become an ethical developmental state that is able to provide strong support to the objective of clean and accountable government that spends taxpayers’ funds responsibly.

Zikalala made the remarks following the news that the Office of the Auditor-General (AG) has given the Office of the Premier a clean audit for the financial year ending March 2022.

Zikalala said the clean audit outcome represents a major achievement for the administration and a demonstration of persistent commitment to clean government.

“We welcome this great achievement by the administration at Office of the Premier. It is an outcome of hard work, commitment and dedication to lead by example from the Office of the Premier team.

“The focus is now to sustain the clean audit and translate it into clean governance. A clean audit should be the standard achievement for all government departments and state-owned enterprises, nothing else,” Zikalala said.

Working together with Director-General at the Office of the Premier, Dr Nonhlanhla Mkhize, Zikalala has over the past three years championed improved audit outcomes.

The interventions included addressing material non-compliance issues raised by the AG, while improving service delivery and decreasing irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure, among others.

The Premier said the high-level improvement measures adopted by his office over the years, included the development of an Audit Improvement Plan to adequately address all non-compliance relating to Supply Chain Management (SCM), contract management and any other issues that gave rise to irregular expenditure. 

In addition, the Premier said the interventions have been implemented to improve the overall control environment and to avoid the recurrence of adverse audit findings.

“In continuation of the fulfilment of its transversal role, the Office of the Premier will continue to beef up the state’s capacity and capability to become an ethical developmental state that is able to provide strong support to the objective of clean and accountable government that spends every cent of taxpayers’ funds responsibly. This is what the citizens of KwaZulu-Natal expect and that is what this province remains committed to,” Zikalala said.

Source: South African Government News Agency