Fairness on how the Auditor-General’s (A-G) office looks at the performance targets by departments and entities has been raised as an issue at the meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Transport on Tuesday.
The A-G’s office came to brief Members on the performance of the Department of Transport (DoT) and its entities for 2016/17. “Some of the entities were challenged with setting targets, as some targets were not specific, not time-bound and simply not achievable,” the A-G’s Senior Manager for the Portfolio, Ms Tshego Singo, said.
She indicated that the A-G did not encounter challenges when auditing the portfolio, as all technical information the office wanted clarity on was explained.
“We engaged the department trying to understand the oversight role they play on entities and have subsequently agreed to do a performance audit,” she said.
The performance audit will commence after the PFMA period in July, and will focus on the specific oversight role the department plays on entities.
The department cited a challenge with one of its targets, that is “stakeholder engagement” and said it was not practically possible to unpack this.
The Chief Financial Officer, Mr Collins Letsoalo, indicated that the discussion the department had with A-G was based on a value-added service, and that based on this, there could not have been findings against the department but observations.
“We agree and disagree on some of the things. It is difficult to state all the people you will get in the process of consultations. We need to clarify certain things,” he said.
Mr Letsoalo clarified that the qualification for the current year was as a result of eNatis, a programme which was never accounted for by DoT.
Acting Director-General, Mr Mathabatha Mokonyama, concurred and said “the qualification of the department was as a result of the eNatis and pending court cases, and all these issues are beyond the control of the department”.
“The department has met the A-G on these issues and has agreed over the years about the smartness of our targets. We agreed they would look at our annual performance plans (APPs) before we submit (reports for audits). All these matters were clarified,” Mr Mokonyama said.
Members sought clarity on such issues as smartness of targets, whether there are avenues for the A-G if departments failed to implement remedial action, and the list of stakeholders that the department engaged in its programmes.
Committee member, Mr Pat Sibande, said often people complained about the lack of consultation on implementation of projects when the Committee undertook oversight visits.
The department and Airports Company South Africa will later in the day present their APPs, budgets and strategic plans.
By Sibongile Maputi
2 May 2017
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