A Fiji economist says the controversy surrounding the recent release of the Auditor General's reports smacks of political interference.
Last week, the Auditor General, Ajay Nand, stood alongside the permanent secretary of the economy ministry and told a news conference that his recently-published report was riddled with errors.
That came only weeks after the chair of the Public Accounts Committee excoriated the media for publishing details of the publicly available report, which identified areas of mis-spending, unaccounted funds and a lack of transparency in the government's books.
Neelesh Gounder, from the University of the South Pacific, told Jamie Tahana recent news conferences have brought the independence of the Auditor General's office into question.
Suva, the capital of Fiji
Photo: 123RF
Transcript
NEELESH GOUNDER: The auditor general is supposed to audit the different ministries, which includes the Ministry of Economy, and if there are any so-called errors in the audit report, then the right thing is for the Auditor General to prepare and separate report and he must present the separate report to the Public Accounts Committee and not to the Ministry of Economy which is a concern in this case because what happened during the press conference was the report with the so-called errors was presented to the public alongside officials from the Ministry of Economy.
JAMIE TAHANA: This press conference, the permanent secretary of the economy ministry - and the Auditor General's report found some deficiencies in his ministry - your problem is with the fact that they're standing side-by-side with the Auditor General admitting these deficiencies in his report?
NG: That is right. I'm concerned with the systems and processes, so the Auditor General audits the different ministries, prepares a report which is handed over to the ministries who then have the opportunity to comment. After the ministries have made their respective comments the report is finalised and presented to parliament and after that it's the parliament's responsibility to hand it over the Public Accounts Committee, and the Public Accounts Committee is the body that deals with all the issues that may arise from the final report of the Auditor General. The question here is, why did the Auditor General have to go back to the Ministry of Economy and talk to them that there are supposedly errors in the report. If there were indeed errors, the right thing for the Auditor General to do is to make a separate report and he must come to the Public Accounts Committee because the Auditor General is responsible to the Parliament, and not to the Civil Servants.
JT: You've gone through the report, were there errors in the report?
NG: From my side I don't see it really as errors because when we talk about auditing, the Auditor General gives his opinion or view about how the government finances have been managed. So the issue about whether there are errors should be dealt by the Public Accounts Committee so I don't see why the Auditor General is now going back on the opinion that he must have carefully thought and given in the first place when he finalised the report.
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