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  • 1 year ago
The Auditor General's special report laid in parliament on Monday notes an absence of evidence and signatures to support the reconciliation of the 2.5 billion dollar understatement in the substantive report.
Transcript
00:00The Special Report of the Auditor General on the Public Accounts for 2023 seeks to account
00:07for an understatement of some $2.5 billion in the substantive report.
00:13That report was submitted to Parliament on April 24 and did not consider the Finance
00:18Ministry's reconciliation for the variance of $2.5 billion, as visits by the Auditor
00:25General's Department could not verify it.
00:29The Auditor General did say on the two days they visited the Treasury Division, the ledger
00:34system could not be opened.
00:37On May 29, the Auditor General's Department was informed the general ledger system was
00:43adjusted to reflect the increases in revenue.
00:46The Special Report notes the decision and approval to reopen the general ledger and
00:52make adjustments were done about two months after the error was discovered, seven months
00:58after the financial year ended, and 15 months after the largest error of $2.599 billion
01:06occurred.
01:07The Inland Revenue Division explained the errors were due to decimal points being in
01:11the wrong place, which resulted in an overstatement of refund expenditure.
01:18In the Special Report findings, the Auditor General notes an absence of evidence.
01:24Adjustment vouchers to authorize changes to the general ledger accounts were not signed
01:29by the Comptroller of Accounts.
01:32Debit advice slips were not examined for unusual or material transactions.
01:38Monthly reconciliation statements on the Exchequer account were not prepared on a timely basis,
01:43nor were they signed by internal audit.
01:47Inland Revenue and Treasury Division's documents bore no signs of examination by internal audit.
01:53Auditor General Jaywanti Ramdas' Special Report says to date there is no internal audit report
01:59on the reported material misstatement of $2.599 billion.
02:05The ministry explained a central bank system malfunction resulted in the erroneous generation
02:11of overstated debit advises.
02:14The CBTT corrected the inaccuracies, but the Treasury Division does not have a record of
02:19the receipt and so the error, it says, was unknown to the Inland Revenue Division.
02:24In the Special Report, the Auditor General concluded that there was a breakdown of internal
02:29control, an ineffective internal audit, and an apparent absence of management oversight
02:35may have contributed to the legislative non-compliance with the Exchequer and Audit Act.
02:41She recommended that the Ministry of Finance's Accounting Officer be reminded of the duties
02:46of the Accounting Officer.
02:48In the past eight years, significant findings were brought to the attention of the Finance
02:52Ministry via nine management letters sent to three of their divisions.
02:57The letters were not always responded to.
03:00Arvishi Tomari, Rupnarayan, TV6 News.
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