Internal controls at the Roodepoort City Theatre

Abstract

The assessment of internal controls has significant influence on the audit outcomes of public institutions, especially local municipalities. An effectively designed and implemented internal control enhances the ability to mitigate risks, and ultimately enables public institutions to achieve their predetermined objectives, to present reliable financial reporting and to comply with legislation and regulations. Without the internal controls, public institutions may experience challenges that may hinder them from achieving their performance objectives. The complementary role of the drivers of internal controls (leaders, managers and governance structures) is even more critical to strengthening internal controls. The study area at which the research activities were carried out was Roodepoort City Theatre at which three categories of documents (the general reports of the audit outcomes of the Gauteng Province local government, RCT’s annual reports and internal audit reports) were targeted for analysis using three document analysis templates. From the results of this research on the main points that are expressed in the three documents, the Auditor-General has played a significant role of assisting managers in the RCT to strengthen internal controls, but RCT’s internal controls still need to be strengthened through appropriate corrective measures by the drivers of internal controls. Therefore, it is pertinent to note that the changes in the composition of the drivers of internal controls of RCT had significant negative implications over internal controls.