Brigitte Weidlich
25 November 2008
The National Planning Commission (NPC) has yet again not provided the Auditor General's office with income and expenditure statements or cash books for its various bank accounts for the 2006-07 financial year.
"The balances of nine bank accounts could not be verified because the accounting officer of the NPC did not submit evidence supporting the closing balances as they were on March 31 2007 to the auditors," said Auditor General Junias Kandjeke.
In his audit report on the NPC, which was tabled in the National Assembly last week, he stated that as a result he could only give a "qualified opinion" on the financial audit.
A qualified opinion is issued when the auditor encounters one of two types of situations which do not comply with generally accepted accounting principles, but the rest of the financial statements are fairly presented.
"It is once again recommended that a cash book should be kept for each of the bank accounts and that all income and expenditure pertaining to that specific bank account should be recorded in the cash book," Kandjeke advised.
"I also recommend that a monthly bank reconciliation statement should be compiled for each of the bank accounts which should be made available for audit purposes.
Income and expenditure statements should also be submitted," the Office of the Auditor General said.
He further said that the NPC submitted its financial records only on December 21 2007 instead of October 31, six months after the end of that financial year.Kandjeke also wondered why the NPC budget showed an under-expenditure of N$5,9 million.
"The Accounting Officer failed to comply with the State Finance Act by not explaining deviations of more than 2 per cent between amounts budgeted per main division and the actual (under) expenditure.
No explanations were submitted either for deviations of over N$100 000 per budgeted (and expected) revenue coming in and actual income received as requested by the Auditor General," Kandjeke reported.
"The Accounting Officer should explain this non-compliance."
The audit also revealed that the NPC had an internal audit function which reports directly to the Permanent Secretary but did not have an audit committee and an audit charter.
"This is against the principles of good corporate governance," the Auditor General criticised.
He recommended that an audit committee should be established and a charter drawn up "which clearly defines the duties and responsibilities of the internal auditors (of the NPC) as well as their independence".
There was also a discrepancy with regard to outstanding travel and subsistence allowances.
The NPC books only recorded N$8 417.83 as outstanding while a dedicated account for S&T showed that N$214 422.47 was actually outstanding.
The total budget allocation for the NPC for the 2006-07 financial year was N$53,2 million, but only N$47,2 million was used.
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