Fiji audit shows blatant financial mismanagement - FLP

Transcript

The Fiji Labour Party leader says the Auditor General's report into government spending over the last seven years details blatant financial mismanagement and breaches of law.

It is the first time the government's spending has been made public since before the 2006 coup.

Mahendra Chaudhry says there is a lot to be explained by the authorities and overspending by some government department's is just one of the issues.

He told Mary Baines there have been instances where money has been transferred from a particular allocation to another area.

MAHENDRA CHAUDHRY: It is quite a voluminous document, looking through some eight years of accounts. It will take a little while before we are through with it. It is very important that we go through them thoroughly in order to see what actually occurred in those eight years.

MARY BAINES: Do you trust that they are genuine audits, they haven't been doctored in any way?

MC: Well, this can only be commented on by the Auditor General himself. One of the things that the committee that we have appointed will be doing is, we will be seeking an interview with the Auditor General to check these facts out.

MB: Some areas of the report have shown a cause for concern, including the audit of military spending in 2007, which shows it spent 23 million US dollars over its allocated budget. What areas are you concerned with in the report?

MC: The areas, particularly where overspending has occurred, areas where money has been transferred from a particular location to other locations for which it was not intended. There has been blatant breaches of the Finance Management Act and the management of government finances and these will need to be properly scheduled so that we can come up with something, which will be an informative document to tell the people exactly how serious these lapses were and whether there was any undue intent behind such spending.

MB: You were Finance Minister in 2007. Were you aware of that military spending?

MC: The military has always operated independently of the finance ministry. Attempts in the past to get the military to assimilate its accounting system with that of the finance ministry did not succeed. They have always operated independently of the finance ministry and this was one of the reasons why the overspending was not being properly monitored, could not be properly monitored.

MB: The pay of ministers and the Prime Minister, do you think the audit shows any cause for concern on that?

MC: It indeed does. And we are not satisfied that the complete picture has emerged. The audit report, we are still investigating that. As you know, we raised this issue way back in 2010 that at least two ministers, the Prime Minister and the Attorney General, have approved for themselves huge bank Visas, reportedly at that point in time each one of them was getting more than a million dollars and the salary was paid through a private accounting firm and not the finance ministry. And the private accounting firm had close connections with the Attorney General. These allegations of ours have not been denied or refuted and despite repeated demands that they table the audited accounts of the salaries have not been met. Of course this is what happens when you're not held accountable for a long period of time, and suddenly they release this report. And I don't think much will happen, because nothing has changed after the elections as far as we are concerned. It is the same mob backing, and they will do the same thing again.