September 30 2011 at 10:30am
By GAYE DAVIS
INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS
Home Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Director-General of Home Affairs Mkuseli Apleni celebrate the achievements of the Department's Turnaround strategy since her appointment in May 2009. Photo: Phill Magakoe
In a major turnaround, the Department of Home Affairs has received its first unqualified audit in 16 years – an achievement reflecting tight internal controls and senior staff appointments driven by minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
The department has for years been labelled as “chaotic” and poorly managed – a situation Dlamini-Zuma promised to address when she took over the portfolio in May, 2009.
She pledged during her budget vote in June of that year to tackle revenue management and other areas of concern repeatedly raised by the Auditor-General – and committed the department to a clean audit within two years.
At a briefing in Pretoria on Thursday, Dlamini-Zuma paid tribute to “the solid and hard work” by senior management staff who had “toiled night and day” to ensure the department met its obligations under the Public Finances Management Act and Treasury Regulations, in its “long walk” to a clean bill of financial health.
“The department has become a normal department, simultaneously achieving improved levels of service delivery,” she said. “We hope that all our officials, across the length and breadth of our country, are proud of this achievement and are inspired to do more… towards building a new Home Affairs. “We would like to express our unreserved appreciation for their support.”
She cautioned, however, that the clean audit for the 2010/11 financial year “poses a greater responsibility upon us all to maintain unqualified audit opinions in future (and to) do even better in years to come”.
Dlamini-Zuma singled out the leadership of director-general Mkuseli Apleni and chief financial officer Rudzani Rasikhinya, She also thanked the National Treasury, the department’s audit committee and the National Assembly’s home affairs oversight committee for “support and guidance”.
Dlamini-Zuma said on Thursday the clean audit had been achieved by implementing effective internal controls, including “weekly follow-ups” on issues raised by the A-G in his previous audit, especially in regard to managing finances, the supply chain, revenue, budgets and assets.
The DA congratulated the minister for “a significant achievement for a department that had been plagued with corruption, inefficiency and poor service to the public”.
The party’s home affairs spokesman, Mazisole Mnqasela, said, however, the department still “has a way to go” to providing efficient customer service. - Political Bureau
http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/minister-cleans-up-home-affairs-1.1148025
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