Submitted as a comment by Artax on the Seeing Your True Reflection blog. There is interest in who will succeed Leigh Trotman as Auditor General but for many in the BU family, it is more academic interest. Successive governments have failed miserably to support the Auditor General Office by ensuring the Public Account Committee ‘acts’. A significant failure of our touted democracy. It is crop over season, who cares anyway – Blogmaster
There haven’t been any significant changes in Audit General reports from over 20 years ago to any produced recently, especially as it relates to non-compliance of some state-owned entities with government’s financial regulations.
And, you’ll realise not presenting financial statements to be audited by the Auditor General’s Office, engaging in questionable financial transactions or ignoring statutory obligations, such as PAYE and NIS remittances, has been a reoccurring process, in some cases, for the same departments, statutory and quasi government entities.
I’ll provide the forum with another example.
Leigh Trotman was appointed as Auditor General on July 20, 2006 and his FIRST Annual Report to Parliament was for financial year 2006 – 2007.
In his overview of that report, Trotman mentioned the Audit Office was currently facing a number of challenges, one of which involved “the recruitment and retention of quality staff to enhance its organisational capacity.”
He also wrote the matter was being addressed by a re-organizational proposal that was “currently before the Ministry of the Civil Service.”
“In my view, the Audit Office as presently constituted and staffed cannot adequately fulfill its mandate. It is therefore hoped that during 2007 the Office will be reorganized with a staff complement capable of meeting the challenges of its mandate as well as meeting the expectations of our stakeholders such as Parliament and the people of Barbados.”
Fast forward EIGHTEEN (18) YEARS to his FINAL Annual Report to Parliament for financial year ended March 31, 2024, as required by Section 77 (1) of the Public Finance Management Act, 2019-1.
The following excerpt was taken from the Introductory Comments of Trotman’s 2024 Annual Report.
“I LEAVE BEHIND an Office WHICH is SEVERELY DEPLETED in TERMS of MANPOWER and this SHOULD be URGENTLY ADDRESSED. For improvement to be made within the Office, there is a requirement for sufficient skilled workers dedicated to their tasks. I have been consistently making recommendations for greater autonomy in the recruitment of staff but SO FAR this REQUEST HAS NOT BEEN MET with a POSITIVE RESPONSE.”
“This was also ONE of the recommendations made by the 1998 Constitutional Review Commission. It should be noted that some TWENTY-SEVEN (27) YEARS LATER, another Constitutional Review Commission is MAKING a SIMILAR recommendation.”
For eighteen (18) years, the former Auditor General has been complaining about a shortage of staff complement in his office……
…… complaints that were either purposely ignored or disregarded by successive BLP and DLP administrations.
People generally become fed-up of reading the same thing, year, after year, after year, especially when there seems to be an obvious attempt to ensure the status quo remains the same.
The blogmaster invites you to join and add value to the discussion.