Defence minister wants experienced auditors

Defence minister Peter Hafeni Vilho says the Office of the Auditor General needs to employ qualified and experienced auditors to avoid making mistakes and passing wrong opinions on the accounts of different government offices, ministries and agencies.

Vilho made these remarks in the National Assembly on Tuesday, when he spoke on a motion to discuss the government’s financial reporting and management systems. The motion was tabled by Popular Democratic Movement member Nico Smit.

Vilho said people should discard a notion that the Office of the Auditor General was infallible or superior to the executive arm of government.

He said auditors made mistakes when they gave the Ministry of Defence a qualified audit opinion based on controversial spending of N$506 million which the auditors could not assess because they were restricted from entering some military bases.

“The N$500 million was audited,” Vilho said. “In fact the audit was so thorough that the audited invoices were valued at over N$408 million. Every auditor will tell you that is quite a significant sample,” he said.

Vilho also criticised opposition parties for “recycling questions” regarding the defence ministry’s budget which had already been answered, to whip up public emotions.

“[Earlier this year] I have spent almost an hour and a half explaining the issue of the defence budget, but in this session again the issue of the N$500 million has been brought up again,” he said.

He suggested that the Office of the Auditor General should consider employing people experienced in public finance management and not only people coming straight from university.

“What I have observed is that the auditors who came to my ministry are very young people that I suppose just came from university. The Office of the Auditor General should also look at employing people that have experience in public finance management. I am not saying they should only employ those people, but a mixture will help,” he said.