The Auditor-General says the Department of Correctional Services never denied that it handed auditors falsified documents, even while it fought the disclaimer.
“The department has not in any of its submissions disputed the fact that the department submitted falsified documents to the AGSA,” the Auditor-General said in a written response to Africa Daily.
Africa Boso from AGSA said that submitting falsified documents to auditors “is not acceptable and it is a criminal offence in terms of section 51 of the Public Audit Act.”
But he did not answer the National Commissioner’s claims that it got the facts wrong.
Africa Daily reported last week that National Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services that he had “never lied to the Auditor-General”.
He said the auditor’s business leader “made the mistake” by treating a submission from officials as one approved by management.
Asked to respond, the Auditor-General did not address the denial. It did not confirm the business leader’s full name and title.
It also did not explain why the department’s audit opinion changed from unqualified to a disclaimer between the draft report of 21 July and the report of 24 July.
It did not respond to Thobakgale’s claims that the management report was never sent to him, or that the transcript of a 20 July meeting does not show the department insisting that the auditors examine the disputed documents.
Thobakgale had told MPs he first gave the auditors the wrong date for when the documents were submitted, before the chief financial officer corrected it to 9 July.
The Auditor-General did not say whether that error was one of the matters it regarded as untrue.
It did not confirm the date it briefed Minister Pieter Groenewald on the outcome.
It also did not confirm figures raised by MPs, including R170.85 million in potential overpricing on food contracts and R6.4 million in costs from court cases the department failed to defend.
Instead, it said the remaining questions were “best addressed in the responses we presented to the portfolio committee during the BRRR presentation, which we still stand by,”
The Auditor-General defended how it handled the department’s dispute.
“The department was afforded an opportunity to state their case during the dispute-resolution process, after it (department) had disputed the audit outcome,” it said.
It said disputes were handled by senior leaders, independent from the audit team that conducted the audit, and that the department’s matter was also handled through this established process in a fair manner.
Boso said that the process allows a dispute to be escalated “through up to two levels led by AGSA leaders”.
Thobakgale had told MPs he took the dispute through three levels: the business leader, the acting portfolio head and the head of audit.
The Auditor-General also rejected the technical opinion the department obtained from an academic to challenge the disclaimer.
It said it did not know the scope of the adjunct professor’s work.
It said his assessment dealt with a situation where auditors find material misstatements, which is different from the department’s case.
“This is in contrast to the audit finding and conclusion reached by the AGSA on the DCS matter which pertains to a situation where the auditor cannot rely or obtain sufficient audit evidence from the fraudulent information submitted by the client,” it said.
“These are two very distinct scenarios and the said opinion did not deal with the specific matter, hence we could not agree with the opinion.”
At the committee meeting, Groenewald said he had stopped the department from taking the Auditor-General to court.
DA MP Janho Engelbrecht said he had “serious doubt regarding the intentions, credibility, and procedural fairness” of the Auditor-General’s report.
The disclaimer stems from a R1.6 billion coal supply tender. Four officials, including the chief financial officer, were suspended in September. A case was opened with the Hawks.