Question NW2951 to the Minister of Finance
15 December 2020 - NW2951
Hill-Lewis, Mr GG to ask the Minister of Finance
With reference to the 2019-20 Annual Report of the Financial and Fiscal Commission, what are the reasons that sufficient appropriate audit evidence was not obtained that goods and services with a transaction value below R500 000 were procured by means of obtaining the required price quotations as required by the National Treasury Regulation 16A6.1?
Reply:
All evidence pertaining to the above audit query was obtained, however at the time it was finally collated, the Auditor General indicated that they were no longer accepting documents for audit purposes as they were then at their reporting phase. In addition to the staff turnover, which in the institution’s small-sized finance division presented challenges of continuity - during May 2019, the erstwhile CFO issued a directive in the finance section to de-activate the automated requisitioning functionality on Pastel. This decision led to challenges being experienced with regard to the storage of documents on the system and affected the audit trail with regard to the linking of requisitions, quotations, approved memos and other supporting documentation to a transaction. The requisitioning functionality has been re-instated on Pastel, which will ensure that all and sufficient evidence documents e.g. requisitions, quotations & other supporting documentation are stored and retrievable for audit purposes.