Recently a politician commented that despite a local municipality receiving a “clean audit” it bore no relation to the effective delivery of municipal services. The implication was that the positive audit result was of little benefit to those living in that town. This set me thinking about the value of annual “routine” regularity audits which are different from “forensic audits”. The latter are important when financial irregularity and fraud are suspected. In South Africa all government departments and entities, which includes municipalities, are audited annually by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA). The AGSA is a Chapter 9 institution established in terms of the South African Constitution accountable to the…
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Public health services … its a question of staffing
It is a matter of public record that public health services in South Africa are facing challenges. Frequently one will hear of shortages of doctors, nurses and other health professionals. The shortage of clinical staff is advanced most often as an important cause of these challenges. In addition, the reason advanced for the predicament is that public health services are underfunded reflecting the constrained financial environment in which this country finds itself. While all of this is indeed correct, a factor that is largely ignored is that as a consequence clinical posts are prioritised over what are regarded as less essential non-clinical posts. Again while this appears to be a…
