The Public Accounts Committee has revealed that it is concerned with some issues raised in the Auditor General's Report for 2007 which specifically deals with the Ministry of Finance, National Planning, Public Enterprise and the Sugar Industry.
The committee said the 2007 qualified audit report states it was not possible to determine the accuracy of the expenditures incurred by the Ministry under each of the eleven outputs, payments of FNPF contributions and VAT could not be reconciled to the accounts and the stocks certificate for finished goods valued at $5.4 million for Government Supplies was not produced on audit.
The committee report states that without further qualification to the opinion expressed, attention was drawn to the statement of losses which was understated as only one Board of Survey was carried out by the seven departments under the Ministry.
A variance of $6.074 million was also noted in the Chinese Government aid between the Office of the Prime Minister's records and the general ledgers.
The committee report also said that the over-expenditure by the RFMF amounting to $1.109 million in 2007 that was charged to Miscellaneous Services under General Reserve was not reflected in the RFMF record.
The report also said an Out of Court settlement totaling $84,000 was met from Miscellaneous Services instead of the RFMF allocation.
The committee said the Government's accounting from cash basis towards accrual had not been clearly planned as the policies and guidelines together with capacity building for accounting staff were still lacking.
A few common cross cutting issues were also raised by the committee.
The Public Accounts Committee said many entities that had been merged had not consolidated their financial statements as was required, and an example of that anomaly in 2007 was the Office of the President and the Office of the Prime Minister.
It also said preparations of monthly reconciliations were very often not carried out since the implementation of the Financial Management Information System of government.
There were also un-reconciled variances on both VAT and FNPF for 2007.
Story by: Vijay Narayan
Public Accounts Committee raises concerns
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