The Congress of the People's internal auditor has resigned and the party is set to lose R20million in parliamentary funding for the year ahead.

Following internal auditor Anton Louw's resignation "with immediate effect" yesterday, party insiders say there is now no way that Cope's books can be audited by the end of this month.

Without a clean audit, Parliament and the IEC will not hand over Cope's funds for the year ahead.

A copy of Louw's resignation letter is in possession of Sowetan. Louw also confirmed that he had resigned yesterday afternoon with immediate effect.

Sowetan reported six weeks ago that Louw had found Cope's accounting systems to be in chaos, and warned that the party might lose its parliamentary funding as a result.

In his resignation letter dated yesterday, Louw writes: "Currently I do not feel comfortable. I have not been provided with any figures nor been involved in the day-to-day running and implementation of systems of the financial department."

Onkgopotse Tabane, spokes-person for Cope parliamentary leader Mvume Dandala, rubbished suggestions that Cope would not get its parliamentary funding for the next year.

"Our audit will be complete by the end of May."