Finance

a) The Provincial Treasury plays the oversight and support role for provincial
departments, entities and municipalities. One of the initiatives that the Provincial
Treasury executes annually, is an analysis of all the final management reports that
have been issued by the Auditor General. The objective of the analysis is to
identify significant underlying factors contributing to recurring and transversal
findings, as well as findings that could potentially influence future audit
outcomes. The analysis is shared across institutions during the various forums and
workshops, and through the Financial Governance Insight Report for provincial
government.
Another initiative is the review of both the interim financial statements and the
final financial statements. These reviews are performed during the year to drive
consistency and identify red flags. This review provides the opportunity for the
Provincial Treasury to assess the financial statements against the relevant
accounting frameworks and supporting evidence. An assessment report is issued
upon completion indicating any recommendations.
Annually, the pre-audit Annual Financial Statements of provincial departments
and entities are reviewed before the 31 May submission deadline to AGSA with
an assessment report issued to all departments and entities by 31 May. The same
process happens in the municipal space, where municipalities who chose to
submit their AFS has an opportunity to have it reviewed by PT before submission
to the AGSA. This is a critical step in verifying what information is provided to the
AGSA and allows for a peer review as well as an independent review by
oversight.
b) The Provincial Treasury together with the Department of Local Government and
Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning drives the
WCG’s good governance commitment within WC municipalities. An integrated
approach is followed that enables continuous enhancement of governance
practices to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of services to
citizens and compliance to laws and regulations.
Institutionalised governance engagements aim to proactively identify and
respond to key financial governance and performance challenges and risks. A
continued key focus is to monitor the matters arising from the external audit
process, the financial management capability maturity assessments and the inyear
performance monitoring processes and current and emerging risks.
Continuous support to municipalities and municipal entities are provided via the
existing Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) structures e.g. various fora across the
financial management discipline, capacitation and development initiatives and
MFMA helpdesk. In addition, provincial circulars are consistently issued to provide
guidance and clarity to Accounting Officers of municipalities and municipal
entities in respect of, among other things - Managing their procurement
requirements, which is the most contentious matter in procuring institutions.
The below municipal strategic engagements are focused on improving
municipal planning, budgeting and implementation.
During the Strategic Integrated Municipal Engagements (SIME) which focusses
on the draft budgets currently prepared by Municipalities, guidance is provided
on financial modelling and budget preparations.
Furthermore, most municipalities continue to comply with the legislative
prescripts in terms of in-year reporting on budget implementation.
The Technical Integrated Municipal Engagements (TIME) focusses on the
implementation of municipal strategic and operational plans and their
alignment to good governance practices. It aims to proactively identify and
address municipal governance and performance challenges to enable
improved municipal performance and service delivery.
Optimising assurance and oversight are key to enable governance
transformation to deliver citizen-centric services. Governance, risk management
and assurance are most effective when adopting a combined assurance
approach. Provincial Treasury is focused on supporting municipalities in the
effective implementation of Combined Assurance. This is achieved through the
monitoring and support provided to municipal audit committees, municipal
internal audit functions and systems of risk management.
c) The Western Cape Provincial Treasury believes that good governance is
foundational to the ability of government to deliver services to our people. For
any government to effectively and sustainably deliver services it must be able to
manage its own finances, collecting the revenue owed to it, plan and account
for how it’s resources will be used and manage its expenditure within those
available resources. These are the basic elements of good financial
management and good governance. Any government that fails at these tasks
will sooner or later run out of the funds needed to sustain the delivery of services.
That is why we emphasize the importance of good governance as being
foundational to service delivery.
Audit outcomes reflect one crucial aspect of governance: have we accounted
accurately for how public funds have been used? This is vital information as
without an accurate record of how public finances were used none of us can
hope to hold departments and municipalities accountable for the use of those
funds. This is why the Western Cape places such a strong emphasis on achieving
good audit outcomes and takes such pride in the outcomes achieved by our
departments and most municipalities. It means that the information presented in
our financial statements is credible and that oversight bodies, including the
Western Cape Provincial Parliament, can use it to hold government
accountable for how public funds have been used to deliver services.