WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP: AUDITOR GENERAL BY JESSIE TAYLOR
Cracking down on corruption through new Auditor-General powers
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uditor-General Tsakani Maluleke has embraced new powers afforded to her in recently passed legislation to clamp down on corruption. She estimated that her zero-tolerance stance on corruption had saved the government more than R630-million in potential losses thanks to accounting officers being compelled to act after being issued with material irregularities. SA’s first female auditor general Ms Maluleke recently told Parliament that the powers given to the Auditor-General in the Public Audit Amendment Act are starting to bear fruit, preventing further losses to the state. She said that in the 2021-22 financial year, 179 material irregularities were identified in national and provincial government entities, leading to a loss of R12-billion. However, the losses could have been significantly more without the new powers. Ms Maluleke estimated that accounting officers’ actions after being issued with material irregularities prevented the loss of a further R636-million. She believes the additional powers have started to move accounting officers from inaction to action in the quest for clean government. Ms Maluleke is the first woman to be named South Africa’s auditor-general in the institution’s 100-year history. She was also the first female deputy auditor-general. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a Chartered Accountant, working in the private and public sectors in various areas, including auditing, consulting, corporate
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advisory, development finance, investment management and skills development agencies.Ms Maluleke has also served on the Presidential BEE Advisory Council, where she successfully led a subcommittee that developed recommendations for broad-based black economic empowerment, as chairperson of the CA Charter Council, and as a non-executive member of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Ombud committee, where she advised the setting up of the FAIS Ombud office. She has a passion for actively contributing to advancing black men and women in the accountancy profession, and she has worked with various organisations, including Business Unity South Africa, African Women Chartered Accountants, and the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa (Abasa), of which she is a past president. She currently holds the position of the non-executive chairperson of the board of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants. She is also a fellow and moderator of the African Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Taking a tough stance on corruption Ms Maluleke said for years, the Auditor General of South Africa had sounded the alarm over increasing mismanagement, the leakage of public funds, and increasing irregular expenditure – demonstrating that little attention was being paid to the Auditor General’s reports. When the Public Audit Amendment Act came into effect in 2019, it allowed the Auditor General of South Africa to refer suspected material irregularities found during audits to public bodies for further investigation and to compel
