128 different levels of society Objective 3: Promote sound public finance management Underdeveloped capacity and skills in public expenditure management Improved financial management by reduction in the number of qualified audits Continuous The 2011/2012 Audit outcomes reflect that the country’s progress towards a clean audit is occurring at a snail’s pace and they also reflect that there has been an increase in the number of annual financial statements that received financially qualified opinions with 25 regressions (12 departments and 13 public entities) and only 21 improvements Greater efficiency and effectiveness in public expenditure management Increased awareness of policy cycles and budgeting processes Continuous The National Treasury (NT) and AuditorGeneral (AG) have intensified their efforts to build sound financial management capacity in the public sector and concurrently improve audit outcomes in the three spheres of governments. To maintain the credibility of the South African government in promoting sound public financial management across the national, provincial and municipal departments, PALAMA has introduced 128 This regression is an indication that the root cause of disclaimers and qualified audit opinions are ineffective internal controls, weak checks and balances for all key financial processes, poor reporting and weak validation