Tag: internal audit

While the internal audit function has undergone significant transformation, the rapid pace of change is only set to accelerate in the foreseeable future. I shed some light on some key industry trends that have emerged, and the some key areas of transformation we can expect to see defining the sector over the next five years.

Does the current model of the traditional regulatory and statutory audit still make sense in the changing business context? These audits performed by independent and external auditors in line with relevant laws and regulations, require the auditee to submit a set of reporting information, and the auditor to produce their report annually in line with the legislated timelines and to meet stakeholder needs.

Too many powerful and well-remunerated people in our public sector are letting South Africans down by continually failing to achieve the strategic objectives of the entities they manage. Officials in the public sector must employ clean governance principles across every aspect of their operations.

There are numerous other variations and forms of the above concept, but one clear common theme is that materiality represents a threshold, a gate-keeper and a clear reference to a quantum above which more discretion and judgement may be required.

Considering the high profile scandals that have dominated news headlines in the last few years, from VBS Mutual Bank to Eskom, it does not seem unreasonable to say that South Africa may have a corporate fraud problem. What’s more, the accounting irregularities that led to shareholders being defrauded and losing significant shareholder value, may have been entirely preventable if the internal auditors had been more empowered, protected and held to the same level of accountability as external auditors, via appropriate regulation of the internal audit industry.

A plethora of corporate governance codes has been written across the world, and in spite of their recommendations which inter alia seek to protect stakeholder interests and shareholder value, many governance failures and organisational collapses continue seemingly unabated.

A lack of consequences to civil servants involved in auditing the public finances has necessitated wide-ranging legislative changes to the Public Audit Act (PAA). This is according to the Auditor-General, Kimi Makwetu. In addition, Makwetu has said that the Public Audit Amendment Bill, which is soon to be debated in parliament, proposes 11 changes to the PAA.