Abstract:
In terms of the Public Finance Management Act, Act 1 of 1999 and Treasury
Regulations, it is compulsory for national government departments in South Africa
to establish an effective and efficient internal audit function (IAF). An effective IAF
can help achieve the policy objectives of the government, which promised that big
strides would be made in the social and economic development arena. The question
then arises whether, two decades later, key stakeholders believe that the mandatory
IAFs are living up to expectation. Hence, the objective of the study reported in
this article was to determine whether selected stakeholders were satisfied with the
IAFs’ contribution on selected activities. The findings and conclusions are based
on a quantitative analysis of the data. Responses to structured questionnaires
were collected from chief audit executives (CAEs), accounting officers (AOs) and
chairpersons of audit committees (CACs) in South African national government
departments. The findings show that all three categories of stakeholders expect
more from IAFs, but only the CAEs believed IAFs were currently contributing well.
The AOs and the CACs did not regard the IAFs’ current level of contribution as very
high. These findings should assist stakeholders responsible for the functioning of
internal auditing in the South African public service.
