Tombe Logale Lukak says in the last 13 years, the government of South Sudan did not produce or close books of its accounts.

Logale says the institution has only been auditing financial performance, compliance, and other special audits if requested by managing directors of finance.

According to Logale, the Ministry of Finance and other entities have not been producing or closing books since 2011.

But he says the Ministry of Finance has hired an audit firm to close the backlog of financial statements.

The audit firm recently produced a three- and half-year report from July 2011 to June 2014 which they are working on to audit.

Logale spoke during the stakeholder engagement meeting for Director Generals from different government institutions.

“Since we got our independence in 2011, the government of South Sudan has not been producing or closing books of accounts, so the financial statement was not produced for 13 years,” said Logale.

“The revitalized peace agreement requires reforms of the public financial management system in the country so this is one of the requirements,

“The workshop was planned to help in that area we want to know why we are not able to produce financial statements, is it a lack of capacity or what? This is what we will find out in this workshop,

“The Ministry of Finance and all the entities and MDs, are supposed to produce financial statements according to the laws of public financial management,

“They are supposed to produce reports and send them to the DG of accounts and Finance with a copy to the Auditor General and audit those financial statements,

“Without those financial statements, the Auditor cannot do anything and cannot produce any opinion.”

The three days workshops conducted by the National Audit Chamber, brought together undersecretaries, ministers, and director generals from the respective organs of the government.

The workshop aimed to enable the officials to produce financial statements.