The SABC is warning parliament: The government and the public need to brace themselves because the beleaguered South African public broadcaster will have a qualified audit of their financial year results ... AGAIN.
What a healthy, clean and normal company gets is an unqualified audit. There is nothing to "qualify" and single out as problematic.
The SABC - battling disastrous management and poor governance issues, poor internal controls, a famously matricless acting chief operating officer which the Public Protector says "should never have been appointed at the SABC, as well as noncompliance and wasteful expenditure - received a qualified audit for the past three years in a row.
Last year the Auditor General (AG) slapped the SABC's 2012/2013 financial report with a "disclaimer" as well - the worst possible grading and the most adverse finding possible, indicating that the finances and financial controls are in such disarray to the point that it cannot form an opinion on the SABC's financial statement.
This was a further downgrading from the previous two years' financial reports which got "qualified audits".
Now the SABC is warning that yet another qualified audit is on its way for the SABC's financial report for 2013/2014.
The SABC's acting CEO Tian Olivier told parliament's portfolio committee on communications on Friday that "we are being audited at the moment".
"We have submitted our financial statements to the Auditor General. It is our own view that we have been able to clear a number of the qualification items".
"By all looks it looks like we will still have some qualifications," warned Tian Olivier.
"Another area that needs focus at the SABC is our supply chain management and the procurement of goods and services. it is also one of the areas that received a disclaimer in the audit and we need to put a lot more work in there and streamline and remove some of the bottlenecks in the procurement process," said Tian Olivier.
It means that the SABC cannot deliver what is called in the biz a "clean audit" - meaning the public broadcaster is unable to account for every cent and every single asset for yet another financial year that has passed.
