Economic Development Annual Report

Annual Report 2023/2024 Mpumalanga: Department of Economic Development and Tourism - Vote 6

1. INTRODUCTION Commitment by the Department to maintain the highest standards of governance is fundamental to the management of public finances and resources. Users want assurance that the Department has good governance structures in place to effectively, efficiently and economically utilize the state resources, which is funded by the tax payer. 2. RISK MANAGEMENT The Department has a Risk Management Policy and Strategy for implementing the system of risk management through a 4-year Risk Management Implementation Plan (2021/22 to 2024/25), which is reviewed annually to ensure its relevance. The Risk Management Strategy focuses on a continuous identification of risks and opportunities in a changing environment. Consequently, the risk universe covered in the year under review, focused on strategic risks addressing the key sectors, operational risks linked to the Annual Performance and Operational Plans as well as ICT risks. The Department conducts risk assessments annually to review the strategic risks linked to the three (3) outcomes (objectives) of the Department and operational risks aligned to the outputs as indicated in the Annual Performance Plan for the year under review. The Department identifies the Emerging Risks on a quarterly basis for management to put additional strategies and action plans to mitigate and/or to treat the risks, and these are considered by the Risk Management Committee, which further advice the Accounting Officer and the Audit Committee on the severity of exposure to the Department. The Risk Assessment Report is communicated to the Internal Audit to inform their annual Internal Audit Plan. The Department has established a functional Risk Management Committee chaired by an external independent Chairperson as per the Public Sector Risk Management Framework. The Committee comprises of programme managers, other key role players within governance including the Provincial Treasury (Provincial Risk Management Support). The Committee provided advices to Management on any unacceptable levels of risks during the year under review, and in some instances, it escalated in writing some areas of concerns to the Accounting Officer. Those concerns were shared with the Audit Committee to allow the Audit Committee to perform its oversight responsibility internal control, risk management and governance. The Chairperson of the Risk Management Committee set and interacted with the Audit Committee and shared the information related to the material risks. Furthermore, quarterly risk management reports were presented to the Audit Committee with recommendations to address any identified deficiency. The implementation of risk treatment plans or strategies for the financial year 2023/24 was as follows: 60% for strategic risks treatment plans implemented, with10% in progress and 30% not implemented. 62% of the treatment plans for operational risks were implemented 38% not implemented. The Department has reviewed the 2023/24 strategic and operational risks registers and new risks were identified. For the risk treatment action that were not implemented in the 2023/24 the risks were reviewed and removed in the register and new risks were identified. Quarterly risk management reports present a comparison between risk, finance and performance to highlight the alignment in reporting. 93.75% was achieved on the activities outlined in the Risk Management Implementation Plan. In the beginning of the financial year 2023/24 the Department has introduced the process reporting that is supported by portfolio of evidence which was incorporated into the risk register. This has yielded results in monitoring progress on the implementation of risk treatment plans.

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