Minister for Defence, Inia Seruiratu says the Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces has taken responsibility to submit their 2014 and 2015 annual reports after SODELPA MP, Salote Radrodro raised the question why the RFMF is yet to prepare and submit the reports.
While speaking in parliament, Radrodro said according to Examination of Audit Reports of Government Ministries and Departments for 2016, internal controls at the RFMF were generally found to be weak and deficient.
Radrodro says the report said that the Compliance Unit of the RFMF is understaffed hence it is unable to effectively cover the scope of its activities.
She adds this is one agency that has been receiving increasing budgets over previous years.
Radrodro says the RFMF in their response to the queries had said the reasons for the delay in producing the annual report was because there was change in the leadership command at the time of the audit.
She says it is now 2021 and they have not received the annual reports.
Seruiratu told the opposition MPs to stop looking at the rear vision mirror as the RFMF has appeared before the Public Accounts Committee and the Army Commander will make sure the reports will come.
Meanwhile Seruiratu says the government takes audit reports seriously and the recommendations are being addressed with the Permanent Secretaries and staff of the Ministries.
He says the whole focus is about improvement.
Seruiratu says they want to have professional and effective organisations but it take time as they need to have the right resources and professionals.
He says they inherit the organisation when they come in as ministers and the role of the Permanent Secretaries is critical.
Seruiratu says the buck stops with the Permanent Secretaries and they need the best out of them. He also revealed that he had to write a report that a Permanent Secretary is incompetent and through the process he is out of government.
The Minister for Defence also says under the constitution, the Permanent Secretary is responsible to the Minister concerned for the efficient, effective and economical management of the ministry or any department under the ministry
He also says he has even been saying in cabinet that they need good human resource managers and most of the jobs have been reclassified so that they can have proper HRs, not clerks.
Seruiratu also says that the government needs to have qualified training officers and all this takes time. The Minister says they have to recruit the best people, and this is being done under the Open Merit Recruitment System.
He says they want efficiency and professionalism but as responsible leaders they cannot fire.
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