Office of the Auditor General wanted to table reports without responses from entities – AG

Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says they have recently found that the Office of the Auditor General wanted to table reports in parliament without taking into consideration the responses from the management of entities.

Sayed-Khaiyum says this is unacceptable.

He says this is where the Office of the Auditor General was not doing the right thing or breaching the audit.

The Minister for Economy made these comments while contributing to the debate on the Review of the Office of the Auditor-General 2018 and 2019 Annual Reports.

Sayed-Khaiyum says they also want to know whether there have been declarations by the Office of the Auditor General as they know sometimes the staff of the Office are related to certain people in those ministries or statutory organisations that they are auditing.

He further told parliament that the Office of the Auditor General’s Report is not there to try and have a go at government but has to find the solution and fix the processes if one particular ministry has not done the right thing.

He then said it is the government that implements policies and if they decide to give $1,000 grants, it is not the job of the Office of the Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee to decide whether it was a good policy or not.

Sayed-Khaiyum also told parliamentarians that the case relating to a very senior civil servant who was charged by FICAC and where financial processes were breached was not picked by the Office of Auditor General but picked up by the internal audit team of Ministry of Economy.

He further says by working closely with the internal audit team of Ministry of Economy, the Office the Auditor General will be able to get the audits done properly and that does not mean that the Auditor General is going to lose his or her independence.

However, National Federation Party MP, Lenora Qereqeretabua says if these two entities work together, then the Office of the Auditor General could be made responsible for any errors or abuses.

She has also questioned why the Office of the Auditor General has to work closely with the Ministry of Economy.

We have sent questions to the Office of the Auditor General.