For the first time since its inception the Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation received a Clean Audit report from the Auditor General. This means the department has received an Unqualified Audit Report without Audit Findings. Given that the department has severely limited resources with its human capital and assets scattered across the province and a wide variety of service delivery programs such as Arts and Culture, Sport and Recreation, Library and Archive services as well as Museum and Heritage services, this is indeed a momentous occasion and massive achievement.

This major achievement was made possible by the empowering leadership of the Member of the Executive Council (MEC), Mr Dan Kgothule, who whipped the entire department into shape, and encouraged the counting of all assets throughout the province, as well as by the regular and stringent monitoring by the Head of the Department (HOD), Advocate Tsoarelo Malakoane, who ensured that the Chief Financial Officer, Mr Kobus Kellerman, and the whole management develop the necessary internal control environment for the purpose of full accountability of all the resources and performance of service delivery.

Equally spread within the whole department are dedicated and loyal officials who worked together as a combined and single team to build and maintain the internal control environment, often putting in extra hours.

Another feather in the cap, which would otherwise have jeopardised the Clean Audit, is accounting for Library material as assets for the first time, which involved innovative strategies and measures to phase in the library material as assets into the system. The audit of these assets went with hardly a hitch. This is due to the innovative creativity and hard work that the Library Service Program and the Information Technology Unit of the department has put in.

“Now that the department has achieved this high standard, which resulted in the Clean Audit, it remains the responsibility of the department and all the officials to escalate the momentum and even aspire to higher standards so that the Clean Audit becomes a habit rather than an exception. I thank all men and women in the department who have ensured that we rise to the occasion this time around”, stated Mr Kgothule.