Omaheke doesn’t know its own assets – AG

The Office of the Auditor-General (AG) has found that the Omaheke regional council has failed to keep and maintain an asset registry, and is oblivious of the assets it owns and their related value.

The findings are contained in an audit report into the financial history of the council for the 2020 financial year.

The audit attracted an adverse opinion into how the council was handling its money matters.

“The auditors observed that the council does not have an approved fixed-assets policy in place.

“Furthermore, the council does not have a fixed-asset register in place. This made it difficult for the auditors to ascertain themselves with the assertion of completeness and existence,” the report noted.

Acceptable accounting policy

The AG instructed the regional council to implement a fixed-asset policy to adjust for anomalies.

“Council should approve and implement a fixed-assets policy, which will cater for important components such as asset valuation polices, depreciation policies and the maintenance of the fixed-asset register,” the AG said.

The Omaheke regional council was also unable to adopt an acceptable accounting policy to measure its amount of stock held, the report found.

“The auditors observed that the council does not have an approved accounting policy [and] adopted measuring inventories, including the cost formula used,” the AG said.

Meanwhile, procurement documents amounting to N$23 million were not submitted for audit purposes.

Another issue that was flagged was the misappropriation of council funds by employees.

“Specifically, they have identified instances of employees inflating their working hours, claiming false overtime amounts and misappropriating funds for personal use amounting to N$3 003,” the auditors said.