Xolani Khumalo
The Public Servants Association is calling for urgent parliamentary scrutiny after the Department of Correctional Services received a disclaimer audit opinion for the 2025/2026 financial year.
A disclaimer of audit opinion is issued when an auditor cannot obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to form an opinion, due to either poor record-keeping, missing documents, or restrictions by management.
The audit outcome comes amid reported concerns about the department’s five-year food-supply contracting process, which reportedly involved 115 service providers and 66 nutritional products, at an annual cost exceeding one-billion-rand.
PSA spokesperson Claude Naicker warns that the department cannot afford to ignore concerns about its financial management and procurement processes.
“They further report that 17 long term contracts was flagged for non compliance including concerns about altered evaluation criteria and inadequate price benchmarking,”
He continued,” These allegations require an urgent, transparent and evidence base investigations,”
Failure to maintain and provide proper records could expose the department to further scrutiny and possible legal or regulatory action, depending on the findings of the relevant authorities.
It could also result in accountability measures against officials if it is established that records were deliberately withheld, destroyed or improperly maintained.
