Auditor general Junias Kandjeke has pointed to some accounting ambiguities at the Namibia Press Agency, slapping the agency with a qualified audit opinion in 2021.
In accounting, a qualified audit opinion means an entity’s financial statements contain material misstatements or omissions.
“In my opinion, except for the possible effects of the matters described in the basis of qualified audit opinion, the financial statement presents fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Namibia Press Agency as of 31 March 2021,” Kandjeke said.
Kandjeke’s findings are etched in Nampa’s audit report for the 2020/2021 financial year which was tabled in the National Assembly for scrutiny this year.
Chiefly, the AG pointed to supporting documents pertaining to the adjustment on the statement of equity amounting to N$1.7 million that were not provided for audit purposes.
What is more, a difference of N$2.6 million was observed between retained earnings in the statement of changes in equity of N$26 million and the statement of financial position of N$23 million.
“Management is recommended that the agency should ensure that adjustments are supported by appropriate documentation. Furthermore, retained earnings in the statements of changes in equity and statement of financial position should agree,” Kandjeke recommended.
More so, there was an unexplained difference of N$2.4 million between the cash and cash equivalent computed by the AG’s office of N$11 million, “and the amount disclosed by the auditee of N$9 million in the statement of cash flow.”
“The net change in cash and cash equivalents amounting to N$1.1 million and the cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year add up to an amount of N$9.2 million. However, the cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year in the statement of cash flow is reflected as N$8.5 million, rein an unexplained difference of N$679 197,” Kandjeke stated.
“Furthermore, as reported in [the] prior year, an unexplained difference of N$449 441 was noted between the cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year of N$8.1million and the cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year (2020: N$8 million).”
The AG directed the Nampa management to ensure that the cash flow statement is prepared and calculated correctly, at all times.
It gets even more interesting as the country’s news agency failed to explain a difference of N$302 254 that was observed between the payroll system totalling N$7 535 531 million and the general ledger totalling N$7 494 977.
“It is recommended that the agency should ensure that payroll reconciliations are performed regularly and reconciled to the VIP payroll system,” the country’s public auditor said.
For the current financial year, government injected more funds into both Nampa and the New Era Publication Corporation.
The finance ministry pumped N$27 million each, into the two entities.
Justifying the improved funding, information executive director Audrin Mathe said: “Look at the Namibia Press Agency – most press agencies in the world have closed down, including the South African Press Agency, because they’ve not been profitable generally, and there’s no way it will be expected to be profitable in the current manner in which we operate. We then approached the finance ministry to be very understanding of the nature of our problems, and they did assist those corporations to receive a small injection with the idea that then your functions and mandate can speak to where general governance is driving the rest of the country in terms of development, but also communicating information out of government, from the constituencies to government.”
- emumbuu@nepc.com.na