This follows after the office of the premier, Bushy Maape, received unqualified audits following the release of the 2020/21 audit results by Auditor General, Tsakani Maluleke.

Maape says his office has built capacity across departments to strengthen supply chain management.

He adds provincial departments have also been reconfigured to correlate with national norms and standards.

Maape also says a massive reduction of irregular expenditure was achieved, and improvement in internal control systems was registered resulting in unqualified audit findings.

The provincial government was placed in national government’s care following allegations of corruption and failure to provide the most basic service delivery to residents.

This has since ended in July 2022.

Maape has since praised the section 100 Intervention in the province, which he says continued to show a positive trajectory after five years of decline and stagnation.

 “Since the national intervention, we have made some significant strides in addressing the governance and service delivery challenges facing our province. They include improved alignment of planning between departments to deliver on service delivery priorities. In addition to this, we have filled key management positions and this is primarily aimed at improving our capacity to deliver services. We are happy that a moratorium on the recruitment of staff has also been lifted. This is going to enable us to expedite the pronouncements made during the State of The Province Address (SOPA)" Maape says.

He also mentions that functions previously centralised in his office have been transferred back to their original departments and moreover, wasteful and poorly managed outsourcing contracts were also terminated and officials have been empowered to do the work they were employed for.

 “As part of restoring financial controls and governance, the Office has built capacity across departments to strengthen supply chain management. Provincial departments have also been reconfigured to correlate with national norms and standards. Massive reduction of irregular expenditure was achieved and improvement on internal control systems was registered resulting in unqualified audit findings,” Maape adds.

Maape’s office has also approved a Fraud Prevention Policy and implementation plan.

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