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The North West Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, as a supporting department to municipalities in the province, is leading by example and has received an unqualified audit opinion with no material misstatements, for the third consecutive financial year. 

In the report, the Auditor General has lauded the department for the effective implementation of the post audit action plan to ensure that similar material misstatements identified and reported in the previous financial year do not reoccur in the current financial year.

According to the Auditor General, the department registered an improvement in the quality of the submitted annual financial statements and implemented internal controls to ensure that the annual financial statements submitted were credible, complete and free of material misstatements.  

MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Gaoage Molapisi has welcomed the audit opinion and believes the department will in the next financial year, push a step further towards receiving clean audit opinion. 

MEC Molapisi who has attributed the audit outcome to the good foundation layed by his predecessor Patrick Nono Dumile Maloyi, said the department will craft an effective post audit plan to deal with all issues raised and strengthen internal control systems to ensure that every financial transaction is done within the financial prescripts to continue to avoid irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure.

“We are quite grateful that we have not dropped the ball over the years, but we remain committed to ensure consistency in our financial health. The same energies will be channelled towards assisting municipalities in improving their audit outcomes. 

We will strengthen our support to municipalities to make sure that they also get better audit opinions, ensure that they submit quality assured financial statements for audit purposes and implement post audit action plans. We are going to continue to lead municipalities by example as we strive for clean administration and to build a reputation of a good service delivery model’’, said MEC Molapisi. 

Issued by North West Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs