Molefhi urges businesses to embrace auditing

Isaac Pinielo | Thursday August 13, 2015 14:28

Speaking at the 2015 Internal Audit Pitso on Monday, the Minister of Infrastructure, Science and Technology, Nonofo Molefhi said internal audit could be the panacea to many of the socio-economic challenges in the country.

“When one looks at the current state of internal audit, and reconcile it with today’s turbulent economic situations where large corporations still fail, mega projects are still also continually failing sometimes due to poor monitoring, fraud and corruption,” he said.

He stated that these then derail government’s intentions of improving people’s lives, subsequently being forced to channel more resources to address these ills.

Molefhi stated that such resources would have been used to fulfill other development priorities if such ills had not been allowed to take root in the first place.

He added that government perceives internal auditing as an ideal control mechanism to help address economic ills.

Molefhi also said internal auditors play a critical role in the country’s economy, as they are concerned with issues of governance, risk management and controls, which also concern the government.

“Traditionally, the function of internal audit has always been perceived as that of a watchdog or policing function. We have however seen an evolution from the inspector and ‘tick-box’ officers to an era of assurance and consulting specialist,” he said.

The minister said this has resulted in the function being a management partner in the quest to achieve organisational objectives. He noted that this has led to evolvement from cash counters to organisational process re-aligners.

According to Molefhi, it is in the interest of government to support such initiatives as they share a common vision aimed at ensuring the effectiveness of the programmes, and growing the economy at large as well.

“We need partners like you to monitor the situation to ensure that misuse and abuse of citizens’ assets is eliminated from our systems,” he said.