Getting to the bottom of the Auditor General’s report

Aug 15, 2008 Features / Columnists

The findings by the Auditor General have been grossly distorted, leading to the belief that the government is deliberately encouraging corruption.

If only the reporters were to seek to interview the Auditor General to understand what the report is really about.

Comments that billions of dollars have been lost to the nation through suggested corruption are really unfounded and at first glance would obviously indicate that things in the report are not what they seem.

And indeed they are not what they seem because by no stretch of imagination would any organization pilfer money from the public treasury knowing that there is a review of government expenditure.

Undoubtedly, there are mix ups in the way some Ministries and departments handle funds. Many are tardy in maintaining proper records while some, in the quest to get things done as quickly as possible, would circumvent procedures.

They do this because on the one hand the government pressures them to get projects executed quickly because the people who want these projects are often unforgiving.

Whenever monies are had from the public treasury there is a trail. There are records of the disbursements; there are records of the expenditures as well as receipts of payments and at the end of the day these records should be reconciled.

But in recent times there have been a relatively high turnover of staff so a job that should have been completed by an individual is often left unattended when that individual leaves.

This then causes the administration to assign a new person who may not always be able to locate the various documents and so indicate a complete transaction.

It is this that has caused much of the problems and has led to some of the negative reports in the report by the Auditor General.

The people who latch on certain aspects of the Auditor General’s report should also take into consideration that the office of the Auditor General is drastically short staffed.

That office has less than half of the staff it needs and this situation also impacts on the quality of the report that is presented.

On many occasions the auditors would point out errors and the offices and departments would reply. Sadly enough, because of the shortage of staff and the large number of queries, the responses are not processed as readily as they should.

That leads to many of the explanations failing to get into the report, hence the creation of the false impressions.

People who hold senior positions in government departments for some reason are reluctant to talk to the press so many of them simply sit back and allow whatever misrepresentations are presented to go unanswered.

This is not what it should be. Instead of blaming the government at face value, it is necessary for reporters to sometimes take their queries to the very offices against which the comments are levelled but this is not done.

Surely, the government must accept some of the blame for this confusion because the leaders should seek to have the heads of departments explain the true position.

For too long the negative aspects are allowed to circulate and everyone knows that negative news are more appealing than any other.

This is why reporters zeroed in on the sensational aspects of the Auditor General report and gave the news reports sensational headlines.

There is another aspect to all this. If as the news reports suggest there has been theft, then one would expect large scale prosecutions. The fact that there is not a rush to involve the police should tell the story.

People should rest assured that if the reports are unsatisfactory then condign action will be taken and right now the government is investigating certain aspects of the report.

It is using the Auditor General’s report as a guide. And when there is evidence of corruption measures will be taken against these steps.

There is another thing that the reporters ignored. There is a parliamentary committee that examines expenditures and surely this committee would have uncovered what seem to be irregularities that have provided headlines in the press over the past few days. The media need to reflect on these.

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