MPs Reprimand BTO For Unaudited Numbers
Pauline Dikuelo | Wednesday October 20, 2021 11:23
Parliamentarians felt BTO is in shambles pointing out that they are failing to supervise their subsidiaries to meet obligations on time and have been operating for some time without a substantive chief executive officer. They said this has weighed heavily on the organisation, which has not been able to submit the audited books. BTO recently appeared before the committee with financials that were not audited for the year ending March 31, 2020, but rather submitted the unaudited ones going against Parliament’s request.
The chairperson of the committee, Nevah Thabang said BTO was not compliant and they cannot discuss the unaudited financial statement. He said it will be hard for them to see if the organisation has improved or not. “We clearly stated we want the audited financial statement in writing and you never responded to show if BTO had a problem.
We assumed you were coming with the audited ones,” he said. When responding the acting CEO Tshoganetso Ponoesele acknowledged the mistake noting that they overlooked the matter. “Indeed, we have submitted management accounts instead of audited ones. We were supposed to inform Parliament but we have overlooked that important fact,” he said. According to BTO board chairperson, Boitumelo Sekwababe the delay was due to the fact that the auditors had requested to go through the organisation’s forensic report and its impact on the previous audit. “Auditors recognised that they need to go through forensic audit in order to assure themselves that when they finish they have taken all the risk in an organisation to account,” he said. A few years ago, BTO went thru forensic audit, which took quite a bit of time.
What has happened is that the audit was to recognise breakdowns, especially with the organisation’s subsidiaries. In a letter read before Parliament, the auditors raised a concern that BTO did not have internal controls to maintain and record the revenue of its subsidiaries.
The auditors were unable to obtain appropriate and sufficient evidence for substantive accuracy and completeness of revenue from the sale of goods and services disclosed.
As a consequence they were unable to determine whether any adjustments required to the consolidated financial statement relating to the accuracy and completeness of revenue from the sale of goods and services.