G20: How supreme audit institutions support infrastructure development and help fight corruption
Deputy finance minister Dr. David Masondo has praised the role played by supreme audit institutions (SAis) such as the Auditor-General South Africa at the two-day SAi20 summit at Melrose Arch in Johannesburg.
Image: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers
Deputy finance minister Dr. David Masondo has praised supreme audit institutions (SAi) such as Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA), saying they assist governments achieve their developments goals and tackle graft.
Masondo was speaking at the two-day SAi20 summit at Melrose Arch, Johannesburg on Tuesday. The SAi20 summit is part of the gatherings held under the country's year-long G20 presidency, with the main Summit taking place in November.
'This summit of the supreme audit institutions of the G20 nations serves as an important tributary to the broader G20 discussions, which in turn will flow into the even broader global discussions related to the sustainable development goals (SDGs),' he said.
According to Masondo, SAis play the crucial role that they do in auditing government and are a key enabler of their countries' abilities to deliver on their infrastructure development goals in the same way that the AGSA plays the key role that it does in enabling the country to realise its infrastructure development aspirations.
'The audits, both – financial and performance – contribute towards our ability to raise funding from development financial institutions, private sector funders and other organisations,' he explained.
In addition, investors rely on the audit reports produced by SAis and the audit reports help countries in examining the controls that need to be in place to ensure the efficient and effective deployment of resources towards the infrastructure delivery programmes.
'The SAis enhance our ability to exercise oversight on the nature, quality and diligence of our maintenance of our infrastructure. These actions are essential in ensuring that infrastructure investment not only happens but delivers value for money, reduces risks of cost overruns and corruption and accelerates progress toward the SDGs,' added Masondo.
Among the SDGs, for which a target of 2030 has been set, are building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and fostering innovation.
Masondo said infrastructure is a key enabler of economic development, employment creation and delivering services to citizens.
'Mindful of this, as the South African sovereign, we have committed significant investments towards infrastructure development. We have an ambitious infrastructure development programs that have ever been undertaken in our country,' he said.
The AGSA, Masondo stated, has helped the government gain insight into the manner in which policies across skills development and education translate into action and outcomes in citizens' lived reality.
'We have an enhanced ability to exercise oversight on the various aspects of our service delivery efforts – being able to be specific in our inquiries and interventions, particularly with respect to the manner in which resources are being deployed and the extent to which they are generating the desired outcomes,' Masondo said.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
IOL News
32 minutes ago
- IOL News
Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke discusses critical resource allocation strategies at the SAi20 summit
Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke at the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAi) 20 Summit at Melrose Arch, Johannesburg. Image: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke believes supreme audit institutions (SAIs) like her office are uniquely positioned to provide foresight, insight, and enable oversight in the use of governments' limited resources for socio-economic development. Maluleke, speaking on the opening day of the SAi20 Summit at Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, on Tuesday, said the gathering was not a mere appendix to the chapters of the G20 programme; rather, it is a critical and interrelated component of the very substance of the intergovernmental forum's deliberations and resolutions. 'Therefore, to the extent that the G20 is seized with how to confront and overcome the challenges facing humanity today and thus answering the question of what is required to make a difference to the lives of their citizens; therein is the perspective, expertise and voice of SAIs and how we are uniquely positioned to provide foresight, insight and enable oversight,' she stated. According to Maluleke, SAIs were critical towards how the governments' finite resources might be optimally harnessed and allocated towards realising the socio-economic development outcomes that their resolutions in the G20 are a reflection of. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ She added that the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions affirmed, as endorsed through United Nations resolutions, the value and benefit of SAIs to make a difference to the lives of citizens. Maluleke said SAi20 has managed to highlight how the unique mandate, capabilities, and vantage point of SAIs position the institutions to support their nations in addressing the key stumbling blocks to progress. She also believes that while SAi20's themes of infrastructure and skills development, along with the challenges relating to them, have featured consistently and prominently on the G20 agenda since its inception in 1999 and progress has been made, backlogs and deficits not only persist but continue to grow. 'The challenge has not been the why and what of what needs to happen, but rather the how; it has not been a lack of knowledge and resources that has held the world back, but rather the challenges of how to do what we need to do,' Maluleke said. She said SAIs have focused on the particular factors that have driven the unrelenting persistence of these challenges. 'We have tapped into our unique expertise and capabilities – particularly relating to having the whole of government's view of resource allocation, flows and utilisation, and risk management – to surface recommendations that governments and SAIs can apply towards unlocking the much-needed accelerated progress towards the realisation of the goals concerning those areas,' explained Maluleke. Such a role and function could only have been played by SAIs with the effectiveness and the rigour that these institutions have, according to the A-G. Maluleke said the African continent is teetering precariously on the tightrope between harnessing opportunity and being overcome by calamity, being blessed with the fastest-growing, youngest population, endowed with 30% of the world's mineral deposits, and over 65% of the world's uncultivated arable land. Conversely, natural and manmade disasters such as the recent unprecedented floods that left over 100 people dead in the Eastern Cape, record levels of hunger caused by conflict, economic hardship, and repeated extreme weather and climate disaster-induced displacement of millions from their homes are also the continent's reality. 'Of greater concern is that these are not new problems; they are not new headlines. For decades, these reports of disaster have overshadowed the abundance of resources and opportunities that our continent has been blessed with,' Maluleke said. She added that, however, these are not problems of politics but problems of humanity. 'They are not resource problems either, but rather a struggle with the allocation and efficient, effective use of those resources towards the betterment of the people of this great continent.
IOL News
an hour ago
- IOL News
Why the Gini coefficient remains crucial for understanding inequality
The Gini coefficient is not the full story of inequality in South Africa, but it remains an important chapter. Image: Ron AI THE rubric of robust statistical measures is essential for evaluating policies and plans within the context of democratic governance. A RECENT Sunday Independent article questions the relevance of the Gini coefficient as a measure of inequality in South Africa, describing it as outdated, narrow, and even politically manipulative. It argues that the Gini fails to account for social grants, informal economies, and the growing black middle class, concluding that we must retire it and replace it with a new, locally informed metric. The critique is welcome and necessary. As Statistician-General, I support public scrutiny of the tools we use to measure our society. But I caution against discarding useful instruments because they are imperfect. The Gini coefficient is not the full story of inequality in South Africa, but it remains an important chapter. Developed in the early 20th century, the Gini coefficient is a single statistic that indicates how evenly (or unevenly) income or wealth is distributed. It is widely used by national and international bodies, especially in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 10, which focuses on reducing inequalities. This commitment is reflected in Agenda 2063, the African Union's (AU's) socio-economic transformation plan. It is embedded in South Africa's National Development Plan (NDP), which aims to reduce our Gini from 0.69 to 0.60 by 2030. The article makes a valid point: inequality is complex, and no single measure can capture it all. The Gini does not reflect the value of the 'social wage' — free education, healthcare, grants, housing subsidies — and may undercount informal economic activity. But it is not meant to measure everything. It is one tool among many, and it tells us something important: South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world, even if we have made real progress in reducing poverty. As a statistician, I use it as part of my statistical toolkit. Statistical measures are essential for data analysis and informed decision-making, revealing patterns and trends. In his 2005 paper, Aziz Othman emphasises that effective policies rely on quality data. There is a growing shift among governments and organisations from opinion-based to evidence-based policy, underscoring the need for credible statistical analysis in policy formulation. National statistical agencies in the United Kingdom and Australia also produce Gini coefficient statistics relevant to their contexts. This highlights the importance of continuous monitoring of income inequality and the integration of statistical methods into policymaking, as discussed in Othman's paper. With more than 30 years of experience in producing official statistics at both national and continental levels, I have come to understand that poverty and inequality are complex issues that span social, economic, and political dimensions. This complexity shows that a single measure cannot fully capture these challenges. Thus, using various statistical methods is essential. Statistics SA (Stats SA) employs three main approaches to assess poverty: traditional money-metric measures based on national poverty lines, multidimensional methods like the SA Multidimensional Poverty Index (Sampi) and Child Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (Moda), along with subjective assessments that reflect personal views of poverty. Similarly, in analysing inequality, the Gini coefficient is but one of several metrics used by Stats SA to quantify economic disparities. Additional indicators include inequality experts Henri Theil's indices, Anthony Atkinson's indices, and Alex Sumner's Palma ratio. Each of these measures possesses distinct strengths and weaknesses, yet all are widely recognised and used by National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and scholars globally to elucidate the structure and magnitude of inequality within a nation. It is important to note that the Gini coefficient facilitates understanding income and expenditure distributions across households rather than functioning as an all-encompassing indicator of inequality, contrary to what the article may imply. Furthermore, additional measures based on asset data, service delivery data, and labour market information produced by Stats SA are also useful for understanding the broader issue of inequality beyond economic indicators such as the Gini coefficient. The simplest approach to measuring income inequality involves segmenting the population or households into quintiles, ranging from the poorest to the richest, and analysing the distribution of income or expenditure across these segments. Recent Income and Expenditure Survey (IES) results indicate that about 75% of white-headed households are within the upper income quintile. Conversely, nearly half (45.1%) of black African-headed households fall within the lowest two quintiles in terms of income. Similar trends are observed in expenditure, where about 45.3% of black African-headed households are also categorised within the bottom two expenditure quintiles. This data underscores the significant disparities in economic status between these demographic groups. The findings illustrate a significant disparity in income and expenditure per capita, clearly highlighting the entrenched income inequality in South Africa, particularly affecting black African-headed households. Notably, nearly 57% of households within the lowest income quintile are female-headed. However, this proportion diminishes across the quintiles, with 49.5% of the second quintile, 42.9% in the third, 34.5% in the fourth, and only 33.5% in the upper quintile. This decreasing representation of female-headed households in higher quintiles underscores the persistent issue of gender inequality within the socio-economic landscape. South Africa has extensive survey data on individual and household welfare from Stats SA, which offers various indicators of poverty and inequality.
Daily Maverick
2 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Africa's push for universal school meals takes centre stage before G20 summit
Ahead of the G20 meeting in South Africa in November, civil society groups have highlighted how school meals as one of the most effective investments in breaking the cycle of poverty. The International Symposium on Global Justice and Africa's G20 Priorities continued at the University of Cape Town (UCT) on Tuesday, 24 June 2025, proposing a programme that would advance a central ambition of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, providing school meals for children in African countries, but also improving access to employment for locals. The symposium seeks to ensure that Africa's developmental voice — and its lived realities — are at the centre of G20 deliberations, helping shape a fairer, more inclusive international order. School lunch programme The session highlighted school meals as one of the most effective investments in breaking the cycle of poverty. It brought together African and global leaders to make the case for universal school feeding as a G20 priority — boosting nutrition, education, and local economies while advancing the rights and wellbeing of every child. Global and faith leaders, along with civil society and other individuals, discussed the critical issues faced by countries across Africa, including a lack of nutrition in schools, poverty, and the impact of climate change, which has led to droughts. They said that children should be at the centre of discussion at the G20, but communities must also plant food to improve security. 'We cannot teach a hungry child. Full stomachs build full minds, and when food is grown locally and cooked locally, served with dignity, economies rise, and children will be kept happy,' said Catholic family and rights activist Mahadi Buthelezi, calling for a universal school lunch programme before Africa's G20. The national coordinator of Caritas Zimbabwe, Harrington Chuma, spoke about the hardships that were faced by schools in Zimbabwe after droughts hit parts of the country over the past years. 'In all these years where we've had these droughts… the government declared that it required about $2-billion to provide humanitarian assistance to our around seven million food-insecure Zimbabweans. And from that seven million, we had more than 1.8 million learners who were affected by the drought,' said Chuma. The government managed to get 24% of the required funding, and 'the government could only do the schools feeding programme in 20 of the 61 districts that are in Zimbabwe; that's almost a third. We have about 6,798 primary schools, and this initiative targeted about 23% of those. So the other 77% were left to find their own means,' said Chuma. The proposed programme supports numerous sustainable development goals by fostering an international partnership. It also encourages experience sharing and assistance from higher-income countries to lower-income nations, thereby enabling and incentivising their involvement. Such efforts aim to eradicate poverty and hunger, promote health and decent work, reduce social and economic inequalities, encourage responsible consumption and production, and ultimately cultivate fairer, more inclusive societies. Resolving issues of hunger and poverty Senior global policy advisor at Bread for the World, Abiola Afolayan, said that issues of hunger needed to be figured out in a timely fashion — at the Africa G20 summit in November 2025. 'We think that the Africa Day of School Feeding should include finance ministers and youth leaders signing a commitment with timelines to achieve universal school feeding… There has to be a continental commitment through the African Union countries that school feeding will be part of their national budgets,' said Afolayan. Barriers that hinder the improvement of meals A discussion led by the head of the Education Division of the African Union Commission, Sophia Ashipala, asked the audience to share barriers that had hindered the improvement of meals in different regions, but which could be addressed at the G20. The audience provided mixed responses. Xolile Mkhatshwa, a delegate from Nkomazi Municipality, Mpumalanga, said that at one point she also had one meal a day. She said a lack of water was one of the barriers that contributed to food hunger. 'Our rivers are dry until now… We need to agree that we are a few years from 2030, and we're not even in line with any of our sustainable goals. Food security speaks to availability, access and utilisation, but if we keep on giving funds at a national level, what about us at a local level?' asked Mkhatshwa. Boitumelo Maila from Mpumalanga said the government must stop issuing contracts for food schemes because corruption was common, and children would suffer. 'I think they (governments) need to be at a point where they come to rural areas to see how much our kids are suffering, simply because their kids are not in those schools; they have all the meals that they can have in the whole world. We also need to conscientise the government to do away with the contracting of food schemes because if we do away with the contracts, I think we'll be moving in the right direction. For example, if the tenderpreneurs are not paid, our kids don't get food in schools,' said Maila. Bishop Thulani Mbuyisa of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, Department of Social Action, said that South Africans needed to start planting food themselves. 'I can speak about examples of Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and so forth, how people use a small plot of land to grow their vegetables…We've abandoned some of the ways that we inherited from our ancestors,' said Mbuyisa. The G20 Leaders' Summit in Africa will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 22 to 23 November 2025. DM
