“We are concerned about the indicators of high risk of fraud and abuse we observed – not only in the areas that we were able to audit, but also where information for auditing was not forthcoming, which could be a deliberate tactic to frustrate our audit efforts.”

These were the warning remarks from Kimi Makwetu, the outgoing auditor-general, when he was releasing the first of a series of reports into the financial management of the government’s R500bn socioeconomic relief package in relation to the coronavirus lockdown which has cost human and economic hardships...