An audit story

The issues highlighted by the Auditor-General's Report remind me of an experience I went through and needs to be shared.

In early 2000, I was contracted to be the co-ordinator of the Fiji Wetlands Working Group. The group comprised officers from various Government ministries, international conservation NGOs, USP academics and others and we were tasked to prepare Fiji for the ratification of the Ramsar Convention.

In 2001, I went to work for USP but was still tasked to co-ordinate the group. The same year I attended the Oceania Regional Wetlands Meeting in Apia, Samoa, and despite not being a civil servant, I was requested by the head of the Government delegation to write and present Fiji's country report.

In my presentation, I literally begged for funding to assist us in our work.

The Deputy Secretary-General for the Ramsar Convention then, Dr Bill Phillips, followed me to Fiji two weeks later and made an arrangement that we personally meet with the British Ambassador, then Honorable Charles Mochan, to get his support in accessing some European funding through the Dutch government's DGIS Programme. The proposal we submitted listed me as the person to co-ordinate the work.

In December 2001, I receive an advice from the Dutch that US$54,000 (F$110,000) had already been sent to Government for Phase One (January to December 2002) of our Three Phase project.

Despite dozens of follow-ups with the Ministry of Finance, the Reserve Bank, the Department of Environment, the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and Environment and the Dutch funders and their banks, we could not locate our funds. It somehow disappeared on the Fiji end of the transactions.

In May 2002, five months into the project period, the funds was then “mysteriously” found. Instead of getting on with the work which was already delayed for five months, my post as co-ordinator was re-advertised as per Government requirement then, and I had to re-apply. Finally I was advised in July that I had been hired to assist the new person they had chosen to co-ordinate the work and we were to begin in August 2002. I turned down the offer because by then, I was already contracted by Bird Life International to assist in the survey of birds around Fiji and also because it was impossible to complete 12 months of work in five months without compromising both the quality and quantity of work accomplished.

The person they hired resigned in two weeks, then the Government negotiated with Bird Life for my two months release with full pay to do a portion of the project while Government paid me a second salary for the work to be done and for some I had already did in my own time.

In August 2003, I presented three recommendations of the Fiji Wetlands Working Group to Cabinet chaired by the former Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and all three were endorsed, including Fiji's ratification of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

But the Dutch stopped their funding after the disappointments caused by the delay on Phase One, so Phase Two and Three were not implemented. This case was never highlighted by any Auditor-General's Report and I am sure there are dozens and dozens of cases that are comparable in nature or may be very different that have stories not told.

Within our civil service, there are a lot of hardworking people. But amongst them, there are also those who have great difficulty in using their common sense.

Some took their work for granted and there are some who have no backbone to say or do what needs to be said or done, thus allowing a particular system to spiral downwards. This needs to be stopped.