Public Health Ministry fails to return $1.62B in unspent funds to Treasury

Public Health Ministry fails to return $1.62B in unspent funds to Treasury – Report

Oct 29, 2018 News

Auditor General, Deodat Sharma has found the Ministry of Public Health in breach of the provisions of Section 43 of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act 2003 which requires agencies to return unspent funds to the Consolidated Fund.
Sharma made this known in his latest report. In that document, the Auditor General revealed that 452 cheques valued at $1.621 billion were not returned to the Fund. As such, Sharma noted that the Appropriation Accounts were inflated by the said sum. While 130 cheques valued at $155.950M were still on hand at the time of reporting, Sharma said that 295 were expended during 2018 and the remaining twenty-seven valued at $258.470M were refunded to the Consolidated Fund.

As it relates to prior years, four cheques valued at $754,880 and 62 valued at $122.524M were still on hand for years 2015 and 2016, respectively.
In response to this matter, the Ministry indicated that it is currently conducting a reconciliation to determine the outstanding cheques on hand. To date, the Ministry said that there are four cheques for 2015, 65 cheques for 2016 and 130 for 2017. Officials said that on-going efforts are being
made to have all the cheques on hand refunded to the Consolidated Fund.
As it relates to the clearing of cheques, the Auditor General noted that cheque orders are required to be cleared within 16 days of their issue through the submission of bills/receipts and other documents in support of the payments made. However, an examination by Sharma found that the Cheque Order register for the period under review revealed that 117 Cheque Orders totaling $34.937M were still outstanding as at September 2018.
In addition, Sharma pointed out that 172 Payment Vouchers together with the supporting documents totaling $25.717M were not presented for audit verification. He said that a similar observation was made in 2016 where 34 cheque orders valued at $6.308M and 14 valued at $6.786M remained outstanding for years 2015 and 2016, respectively. In the circumstance, Sharma said that the completeness, accuracy and validity of the transactions could not be determined.
In response, the Ministry indicated that 115 cheque orders are still outstanding along with 175 missing vouchers. Officials indicated to the Auditor General that efforts are on-going to have all vouchers located for audit.
Sharma subsequently recommended that the Ministry renews all efforts to have Cheque Orders cleared and to ensure that there is strict compliance to the requirement for the clearing of Cheque Orders; and put systems in place to ensure that there is adequate accountability for Payment Vouchers and supporting documents, so that these could be provided for audit in a timely manner.