Praneeta Prakash 
file photo
The Real Estate Agents Licensing Board says staff shortages and missing records are causing delays in completing its financial audits.
According to Acting Assistant Auditor-General Mohammed Firoz, the primary hurdle in auditing REALB’s historical accounts has been the lack of adequate supporting documentation.
This was highlighted during submissions to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
“Most of the documents that we require in terms of auditing backlog accounts are not available in terms of the queries that we raise. And the other issue is that the errors that we identify from the backlog audit are not able to be rectified prudently in the financial statements. The challenge we noted from REALB was it took them really a lot of time to rectify the issues that we raised.”
REALB Registrar Peni Komainavoka says they have been working to address these concerns.
The delay is, I can say, out of our control since our external auditors have issues with the delay on their part and with the corrective measures that we need to correct our financials and resubmit them to us. Moving forward, the board has engaged the services of another external auditor to look at the three years of our financials from 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
He adds they are also in the process of digitizing records to improve financial reporting.
The board anticipates submitting the updated financial statements to the OAG by the first quarter of the next financial year.
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