The Premier of KwaZulu-Natal Sihle Zikalala has greeted with jubilation the news that the Office of the Auditor-General has given the Office of the Premier a clean audit for the financial year ending March 2022.

 

The news was broken to the Office of the Premier during a meeting held with the AG's Office earlier Today.

 

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

 

Over the past three years, working together with the Director-General, Dr Nonhlanhla Mkhize, Premier Zikalala has championed improved audit outcomes incrementally since 2019’

 

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

 

"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," said Premier Zikalala.

 

"The high level improvement measures adopted by the Office of the Premier, over the years includes the development of an Audit Improvement Plan to adequately address all non-compliance relating to SCM, contract management and any other issues that gave rise to irregular expenditure.  In addition interventions have been implemented to improve the overall control environment and to avoid the recurrence of adverse audit findings," said Premier Zikalala.

 

 

In continuation of the fulfillment 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," concluded Premier Zikalala.

 

Ends.

 

Issued by the Provincial Government of KwaZulu-Natal.