The Gauteng Department of Social Development has received a qualified audit opinion for 2025/26. Illustration: Lisa Nelson
- The Auditor-General (AG) has given the Gauteng Department of Social Development a qualified audit opinion for 2025/26, backsliding from the previous two years.
- The department gave no supporting evidence for its reported performance, so the AG could not verify how many targets it met for the two programmes it audited.
- The AG could not get enough evidence that the department had measures to ensure the R1.9-billion it paid to non-profit organisations was used as intended.
The Gauteng Department of Social Development (GDSD), which delivers social welfare services and manages social protection programmes in the province, has seen its audit outcome backslide. The Auditor-General (AG) issued the department a qualified audit opinion with findings for the 2025/26 financial year. The department had received an unqualified audit opinion with findings in the previous two financial years (2023/24 and 2024/25).
The department’s budget for the year was R5.6-billion, R1.9-billion of which was paid to non-profit organisations providing social services to the province’s most vulnerable people.
In 2023, a forensic audit found that the department lacked the capacity to properly monitor and evaluate the performance of non-profit organisations.
In the 2025/26 audit, the AG found that there were no systems to monitor progress towards department targets and it could not get evidence that there were sufficient systems in place to ensure payments to organisations were used for what they were meant for.
The AG audited two of the department’s programmes: social welfare services and children and families. The department had given no supporting evidence for its performance, so the AG could not verify the department’s claimed performance against targets: 86% for social welfare; 73% for children and families. 
This brings into question the department’s reported performance for other programmes. The annual report says it achieved “at least 83%” of its planned targets. Some targets had also been reduced due to funding cuts during the year, including for food relief (from about 400,000 beneficiaries to about 332,000) and poverty reduction (from 465,000 to 393,000). In the end it exceeded both reduced targets.
The AG also found material misstatements in the financial statements and flagged irregular expenditure, non-compliance with the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), and supply chain management issues.
The PFMA requires departments to disclose all irregular expenditure in their financial statements. The AG found the department spent funds in violation of supply chain management rules and failed to include all of it in its financial reporting.
The department had reported about R1-million in newly confirmed irregular expenditure. The AG said it was “impractical” to calculate how much higher the true figure actually is because of a lack of full disclosure.
The majority of the irregular expenditure disclosed in the financial statements was caused by non-compliance with Treasury regulations, said the AG, noting that “effective and appropriate steps were not taken to prevent” it.
The department said in its annual report that it had adopted a “no deviation” policy at the end of the 2024/25 financial year. But the AG found that some goods and services worth more than R1-million were procured without inviting competitive bids.
The department disclosed that retrospective approvals and supply chain contraventions saw non-compliant spending on tent hire, mobile toilets, chair rentals, kitchen services, conference attendance, and direct disbursements to a subcontractor for school uniforms.
The AG also could not get enough evidence to determine whether all contracts had been managed in accordance with the law, as contracts and related management records were not submitted for audit.
The AG said it did not receive “evidence that disciplinary steps were taken against officials who had incurred irregular expenditure … because investigations into irregular expenditure were not performed”.
The annual report also shows the closing balance of fruitless and wasteful expenditure – money spent without deriving value – at R8.3-million and a further R52.2-million is being assessed or investigated.
GDSD spokesperson Motsamai Motlhaolwa said the department has conducted a detailed assessment of the AG’s findings and developed an audit improvement plan.
The department “diligently monitors resolution of findings on a weekly basis across all affected areas within the department”, said Motlhaolwa.
According to its annual report, the GDSD set up a consequence management committee in the 2025/26 financial year to review outstanding disciplinary cases and enforce sanctions.
Officials whose actions directly caused confirmed irregular expenditure were served with final written warnings, the report read.
To curb recurring procurement breaches, GDSD said that it replaced ad-hoc request-for-quotation processes for repairs and maintenance with an approved panel of service providers.
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