Cape Town - Premier Helen Zille said the provincial government was forging ahead with a court case to review and set aside the auditor-general’s interpretation of the Agriculture Department’s audit outcome. If they won, it would give the province a 100% unqualified audit. The AG said in Parliament on Wednesday the Western Cape had received 83% clean audit outcomes for 2018/19 across all entities and departments.
“The Western Cape once again received by far the highest number of clean audits in South Africa in 2018/19 across all entities and departments, with 83% clean audit outcomes achieved, compared to Gauteng at 52%,” Zille said.
On the court case, Zille said: “We look forward to making our case in court to review and set aside the auditor-general’s interpretation of the Department of Agriculture’s audit outcome in due time. This would bring the province’s unqualified audit percentage to 100%.”
The matter between the AG and the department boils down to a difference in interpretation regarding the AG’s findings in respect of the department’s classification of certain payments made to entities involved in farmer settlement and disaster relief projects in the Western Cape involving R266million. The AG’s office requested the department to alter its recordings of payments of R266m to Casidra and Hortgro from transfer payments to goods and services before it could give an opinion on the department’s 2016/2017 and 2017/18 audit.
However, there is no end in sight in the battle between members of the legislature’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on whether disputed financial statements of the provincial agriculture department can be scrutinised in public.
Scopa has sought legal advice on whether the discussion of the 2016/17 and 2017/18 annual reports is sub judice following the department’s court action against findings of the auditor-general.
At its meeting yesterday, Scopa chairperson Ferlon Christians said he had proposed that the department come and present their views and that if there are matters that could not be discussed, they should point them out.
“The department is ready and willing to come to us and present their cases. And I thought that this would be the best way to go forward,” he said.
“My warning to them was that if we get another legal opinion on this and that legal opinion says we can in fact discuss those matters the department said we can’t, we will be back to square one,” he said.
@JasonFelix