Q&A’s, 2006

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Question for Written Reply
IQP NA No. 30 - 2006 dated 15 September 2006

Question 1226

Mr L B Labuschagne (DA) to ask Minister of Public Enterprises:

Whether, with reference to his reply to Question 668 on 3 July 2006, all state-owned enterprises received unqualified audits for the past two financial years; if not, (a) why not and (b) what steps has he taken to rectify the matter?

Reply

There are seven SOE that report directly to the department and that have prepared financial statements for the past few years. The table below provides a synopsis of the kind of audit opinion received per SOE in the past two financial years of reporting.

Table 1: Alexkor, Denel, Eskom and SAA

Table 2. Safcol, Transnet and Aventura

Alexkor's and Denel's financial statements for 2006 have not yet been approved as their AGMs are still to be held; hence the table is based on the opinions for 2004 and 2005. And in the case of Aventura, the business was sold in 2003 with the restructuring of SOE and is now wound down.

As can be seen from the table above, all the SOE received unqualified audits except for Denel, in 2005. The qualification in Denel's audit arose from management's estimates of cost of sales and risk provision included in the contract loss on the Rooivalk Attack Helicopter project. The Auditor was of the opinion that owing to the specialized nature of the project, it would be necessary to seek independent expert