The Auditor General Department is facing challenges in auditing the Tobago House of Assembly’s financial statements.
In fact, the Auditor General’s Department is only now looking at the THA’s September 2016 financials.
And so the THA is trying to find a “reputable, independent firm” to help them audit their financial statements.
This is according to the Secretary of Finance and the Economy in the Tobago House of Assembly Joel Jack as he delivered his Budget presentation at the THA on Monday.
“In keeping with my commitment made in the 2020 Budget Statement, a meeting was convened with the Auditor General Department to discuss matters relating to the outstanding audit of the Assembly’s Financial Statements. Currently, the Auditor General is auditing Financial Statements for the year ended 30th September 2016 in the face of financial and manpower challenges,” Jack said.
“I am therefore pleased to advise this Honourable House that the Auditor General agreed with the Assembly’s recommendation to engage a reputable, independent firm to assist with the auditing of the Financial Statements,” he said.
As a result of this the THA with the assistance of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Trinidad and Tobago (ICATT), a Request for Proposals (RFP) was issued.
“An RFP has been issued and we are waiting on a formal report on the RFPs from ICATT,” Jack told Guardian Media.
“You may recall in my previous budget statements, that I acknowledged some challenges emanating from the Auditor General’s Report, not suggesting malfeasance by any means but recognising that our systems were antiquated,” Jack said.
“We embarked on a programme to re-engineer and modernise our accounting systems, aimed at increasing efficiency, accountability, transparency and real-time decision making ultimately eliminating the use of a manual accounting system,” he said.
Jack said the implementation of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) piloted in collaboration with Central Government and The Inter-American Development Bank is one of the major projects being undertaken by the THA.
“This project has experienced some delay in its rollout owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation timelines are being reviewed. This notwithstanding, pre COVID-19 saw the completion of the new Chart of Accounts (CoA) based on the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) General Financial Statistics (GFS),” he said.
“The base electronic module for asset/inventory recording and maintenance registration systems of the Government was also completed and the configuration of the system with the Chart of Accounts is ongoing.
Jack said the THA is “committed to Public Financial Management modernisation and best practice, as well as integrity and accountability and we are working diligently to ensure that this project is completed in the most efficient and timely manner.”
According to previous reports by the Business Guardian successive auditor general reports have raised serious questions about the way in which public funds are being accounted for by the THA.
It is a tale of failure by the THA to provide the Auditor General with the appropriate documents, missing vouchers, poor accounting, and a general lax approach to accounting and spending of public funds.
A 2016 report of the Auditor General which looked at the 2015 financial year, revealed that vouchers totalling almost $500 million were not produced by the THA for examination.
The report also highlighted discrepancies in expenditure.
In 2015, the THA spent $32 million to purchase two properties, Sanctuary Villa at Black Rock and Manta Lodge and Dive Villa at Speyside.
The THA’s first chief secretary Hochoy Charles said there is a lot of ignorance with respect to the assembly and this even extended to the Auditor General Department.
“A lot of people do not understand the THA Act. It is a lot of ignorance,” Charles said.
“The THA is not a government department it replicates the government in Trinidad, the House of Assembly is like the government in Trinidad and under the government in Trinidad, notice I said in Trinidad and not of Trinidad because we have one government of T&T as you know,” Charles said.
Charles said the money approved for the THA in the national budget is sent to the THA Fund in quarterly tranches.
The THA Fund is created by Section 141 of the constitution of Trinidad and Tobago and includes all revenue raised for Tobago inclusive of the budgetary allocation.
“So sometimes when the staff in Trinidad are examining the accounts of the THA they examine it as though they are dealing with a ministry and they take up the estimates and looking at it to say ‘you know the government sent this money to Tobago how you spent this money? The assembly does not spend money like that,” Charles said.
“The executive council makes the decision as to how the quarterly advances are going to be spent and then releases money just like the minister of finance will sign a release, release these monies to a division,” he said.
Charles said the THA is not bound by the financial regulation under the Audit and Exchequer Act.
“You know we are not bound by the financial regulations under the Audit and Exchequer Act, we are bound by the Audit and Exchequer Act but not by the financial regulations. We have our regulations that we prepared under Section 52 of the THA Act and Section 78 of the THA Act and we are bound by those rules,” he said.
Charles said he believes “education” would help address the ignorance with respect to the THA and its operations.
“The Assembly makes a lot of blunders because the people who are there for the last 20 years do not understand the THA,” Charles said.
Charles said even the longest-serving THA chief secretary Orville London was not as au courant about the THA Act as he should have been.
“I don’t even know what they do, they are doing a lot of stuff that they do not understand,” Charles said.
Charles said when he was THA chief secretary the budget that he had available was around $300 million.
The THA is requesting $4.71 billion from the central government in its 2020/2021 budget. The recurrent expenditure is $3.07 billion while development programme expenditure is $1.5 billion.