Afternoon Drive withJoanne Joseph

Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu expressed disappointment when he released the national and provincial audit results for the 2018/19 financial year this week.

They revealed a staggering R62-plus billion in irregular expenditure, up from the R52 billion recorded for the previous year.

RELATED: 'Irregular expenditure increased by R62.6bn and Free State gets no clean audits'

On Weekend Breakfast, Africa Melane gets the input of Thokozani Chilenga-Butao, doctoral fellow and associate lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).

Chilenga-Butao says it's a misconception that irregular expenditure is automatically linked to corruption.

She notes some of the other underlying causes as outlined by the Auditor-General.

Some of the overspending in departments is party historical, partly to do with lack of oversight and management, partly to do with projects that have been going on for so long long that now the costs to complete them are high. There's also a lack of political will to change what is happening in the departments.

— Thokozani Chilenga-Butao, Associate lecturer in political studies - Wits University

She says it's crucial to appoint the right people in key positions and to bring about stability within departments.

Apart from mismanagement by people who are presently in the system there's also a lack of skills in some areas.

— Thokozani Chilenga-Butao, Associate lecturer in political studies - Wits University

Someone will have been acting in a position for a long time, high turnover in key positions such as CFO or COO and that derails the process of actually bringing a department's or province's finances back into compliance.

— Thokozani Chilenga-Butao, Associate lecturer in political studies - Wits University

For more insights from the Wits associate lecturer, click on the link below:

This article first appeared on CapeTalk : Govt's poor audit outcomes: 'Appointing the right people in key positions vital'