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INDEPENDENT AUDITORS’ REPORT TO THE MINISTER OF HIGHER EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND THE COUNCIL OF THE DURBAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (continued)
Annexure A– Auditors’ responsibility for the audit
As part of an audit in accordance with the ISAs, we exercise professional judgement and maintain professional scepticism throughout our audit of the consolidated financial statements, and the procedures performed on reported performance information for selected strategic objectives and on the University’s compliance with respect to the selected subject matters.
Consolidated financial statements
In addition to our responsibility for the audit of the consolidated financial statements as described in this auditor’s report, we also:
• Identify and assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements whether due to fraud or error, design and perform audit procedures responsive to those risks, and obtain audit evidence that is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. The risk of not detecting a material misstatement resulting from fraud is higher than for one resulting from error, as fraud may involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal control.
• Obtain an understanding of internal control relevant to the audit in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the University’s internal control.
• Evaluate the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates and related disclosures made by the Council.
• Conclude on the appropriateness of the Council’s use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the consolidated financial statements. We also conclude, based on the audit evidence obtained, whether a material uncertainty exists related to events or conditions that may cast significant doubt on the University’s ability to continue as a going concern. If we conclude that a material uncertainty exists, we are required to draw attention in our auditor’s report to the related disclosures in the consolidated financial statements about the material uncertainty or, if such disclosures are inadequate, to modify the opinion on the consolidated financial statements. Our conclusions are based on the information available to us at the date of this auditor’s report. However, future events or conditions may cause the University to cease to continue as a going concern.
• Evaluate the overall presentation, structure and content of the consolidated financial statements, including the disclosures, and whether the consolidated financial statements represent the underlying transactions and events in a manner that achieves fair presentation.
• Obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding the financial information of the entities or business activities within the University to express an opinion on the consolidated financial statements. We are responsible for the direction, supervision and performance of the group audit. We remain solely responsible for our audit opinion.
Communication with those charged with governance
We communicate with the Council regarding, among other matters, the planned scope and timing of the audit and significant audit findings, including any significant deficiencies in internal control that we identify during our audit.
We also provide the Council with a statement that we have complied with relevant ethical requirements regarding independence, and to communicate with them all relationships and other matters that may reasonably be thought to have a bearing on our independence and, where applicable, actions taken to eliminate threats or safeguards applied.
From the matters communicated to those charged with governance, we determine those matters that were of most significance in the audit of the consolidated financial statements of the current period. We describe these matters in this auditor’s report unless law or regulation precludes public disclosure about the matter or when, in extremely rare circumstances, we determine that a matter should not be communicated in this auditor’s report because the adverse consequences of doing so would reasonably be expected to outweigh the public interest of such communication.
DURBAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY ANNUAL REPORT 2020
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