THE Auditor General’s (AG’s) Report into the Government’s spending spree of its $308.5 million Economic Stimulus Package [ESP] is an extremely fascinating document indeed, if you are privileged enough to lay your hand on a copy.
Not only is the 40-page Report captivating, it is intriguing for more reasons than one. Not all the reasons are good either.
In his overview, the Auditor General said his Office undertook an audit of the ESP appropriated expenditure in 2020 and 2021 “to assess whether it complied with the financial rules and regulations, and the expenditure was made in accordance with the ESP approved by Cabinet and published [in a booklet] on 6 May 2020.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided budget support for the Government’s balance of payment.
In its letter of intent to the IMF, the Government committed to an audit of the COVID-19 spending.
“This audit is the final of the COVID-19 series of audit made under this commitment,” the Auditor General said. The Report has been submitted to Parliament but as yet, Parliament is yet to release it to the public.
Parliament is due to meet next month.
That commitment given to the IMF is where all good things ended and the start of all inconsistencies, including but not limited to creating new rules outside existing legally sanctioned rules, began.
“At the outset I would like to again acknowledge the extraordinary circumstances created by the COVID-19, which heightened the inherent risk for expediting procurements and delivery of payments and services at the expense of following established procedures.
“In this case the ESP lacked underlying legislative or procedural guidance for issuing grants on the scale involved with the ESP and had insufficient resources needed to adequately receive, process, pay and document the thousands of applications leading to weaker internal controls,” the Auditor General said.
“In relation to the conduct of this audit my team (and I) were faced with numerous delays including slow delivery or missing documentation and, in some cases, only forthcoming after the draft audit report had been shared. My team also had payments to undertake audit field work being blocked raising serious concerns about impingement of the independence of my office.
“Other common themes include the lack of transparency about who received funding and what it was received for, inadequate documentation and reporting across the ESP and in many cases documentation to support the validity of actions and transactions were not available.
“This area remains a concern across government which requires urgent action,” the report said.
“There are also arears in which compliance and potential of fraud was evident with many payments being signed for by government officials on behalf of beneficiaries without documented authorisation, including payments totalling over $6 million being signed for by one officer.”
There is more to come.
Not a single positive comment was made in the ESP spending spree. The initial appropriated amount was $309 million. In the end, the final amount paid out was $308.5 million.
By Alfred Sasako
