Sources and methodology

This page sets out where the information on this site comes from, how it is assembled, and what its limits are. It is here so that anyone relying on the data can judge how much weight to place on it.

Sources

Audit outcomes

Audit outcomes are as reported by the Auditor-General of South Africa. The Auditor-General audits all national and provincial departments and public entities under the Public Finance Management Act, and publishes consolidated general reports on the outcomes each year.

Outcomes are shown exactly as reported. They are not interpreted, aggregated or adjusted.

Financial figures

Financial figures are drawn from entities’ audited annual financial statements and from National Treasury’s consolidated financial information. All values are stated in rand.

Contacts, leadership and structure

Contact details, office bearers and reporting relationships are compiled from entities’ own published material, including their websites, annual reports and public notices.

Descriptions

Entity descriptions are original text written for this directory. They are based on the legislation establishing each entity and on that entity’s own published account of its mandate. The specific sources used for each entity are listed at the foot of its page.

How audit outcomes are presented

Each entity page carries a five-year audit record shown as a row of coloured year cells, oldest on the left. The scale is:

• Clean audit: financially unqualified with no findings on performance reporting or compliance
• Financially unqualified: unqualified opinion on the financial statements, with findings
• Qualified: the auditor found material misstatements affecting specific items
• Adverse: the financial statements are materially misstated overall
• Disclaimer: the auditor could not obtain sufficient evidence to form an opinion

Three further values appear in the source records and mean something different. Not reported, new auditee and audit not finalised say nothing about an entity’s performance. They are shown as not reported, drawn in neutral grey, and excluded from streak counts and from the improving, stable or declining trend indicator. A year that was never audited does not count against an entity.

How financial figures are presented

Headline figures are shown for the most recent reported year, with a sparkline covering the years available. Sparklines run oldest to newest and are scaled to the range of the series itself rather than anchored at zero, because anchoring large and similar figures at zero flattens them into a straight line and hides the trend.

Expenditure is reported as a negative value in the source statements. That is the sign convention used in those statements, not a deficit, and it is presented as reported.

Known limits

• Reporting cycles differ. Entities publish annual reports at different times, so the most recent year available is not the same for every entity
• Not every entity is separately audited. Some colleges and subsidiaries report through a parent department and have no separate audit record here
• Structures change between updates. The 2024 reconfiguration of national departments is reflected, but later changes may not yet be
• Office bearers change frequently, and leadership listings are among the fastest-ageing information on the site

Updates and corrections

The directory is refreshed against its sources periodically. Corrections reported by readers are handled separately and applied as they are verified. See the corrections page.