By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Auditor-general (AG) Tsakani Maluleke has welcomed National Treasury’s decision to withdraw a gazette granting Eskom exemption from disclosing irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure in its financial statements.
Maluleke acknowledged that the granting of exemptions from the Public Finance Management Act is the prerogative of the finance minister as empowered by section 92 of the Act.
“It is important that any exemptions granted should continue to promote transparency and accountability in the public sector,” she said.
The auditor-general has a constitutional mandate to strengthen the country’s democracy by enabling oversight, accountability and governance in the public sector through auditing, said Maluleke.
Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana on Wednesday told members from Parliament, during a joint sitting of the concerned portfolio committees, that the decision to grant Eskom spending exemption had been reversed following much public criticism and a discussion with the AG.
Godongwana said he granted the exemption after Eskom’s board wrote to him with the request.
“The intention is not to hide anything,” he said.
On Friday, Treasury published a gazette exempting Eskom from section 55(2)(b)(i) of the PFMA and Treasury Regulation 28.2.1 for a period of three years.
Treasury explained that the exemption was given for several reasons, but primarily to protect the embattled power utility’s credit rating and audit opinion, which would have had a knock-on effect on the power utility’s financials and loans.