Mafia Attitude at Auditor-General’s Office
The Office of the AuditorGeneral’s questionable competency has led to too much incorrect and misunderstood information making its way into the public domain.
Such misinformation is then used by Opposition politicians to mislead members of the public. This has gone on for far too long.
The announcement of a commission of inquiry into the Office of the Auditor-General is welcomed and such an inquiry has been long overdue.
We highlight here some of the instances where complete misinformation ended up being part of the audited accounts, unnecessary delays in audited accounts, and explain how this then tarnishes the reputation of independent institutions, State Owned Enterprises and government ministries.
Another point of great concern is that not once has the Auditor-General, Ajay Nand, come out to correct misinformation in the media, especially the blatant misinformation published by the Fiji Times.
Fijian Broadcasting Corporation Audit Report of 2019:
A good example is the way the outstanding accruals for broadcast licence fee for the FBC for the year 2019 was handled.
As per standards, accruals are booked, however, payments are done upon receipt of invoices. The Audit Report stated that FBC had not paid the broadcast licence fee for 2019.
The issue here is that FBC had not been sent an invoice for the same. How could they have gone ahead and made payments without supporting documentation?
Despite clarifying to auditors on why the fee was yet to be paid, the audit report merely noted that FBC had not paid the broadcast licence fee for 2019.
This was then used as a political tool by Opposition members in
Parliament.
Walesi Fiji Limited:
Walesi is another company treated extremely unfairly. And, a number of incorrect Fiji Times article has not been called out or corrected till date by Mr Nand or his team.
On page 8 of the 2019 – 2020 Report of the Auditor-General of the Republic of Fiji, in the ‘Audits status as at 31 July 2021 column of the table, it states:
“2016 audited financial statements sent for signing on 12 July 2021 while 2017 audited financial statements sent for signing on 16 August 2021. The entity was yet to return the signed financial statements for 2016 and 2017. 2018 – 2019 audits will be carried out in FY 2021/2022.”
Written this way, anyone would assume that the delay was due to Walesi. It also does not properly outline when the financials were sent so those reading can see the duration of the delay.
Walesi submitted their 2018, 2019, and 2020 financials for auditing to the Auditor General’s office, and are waiting for them to finish the audit even today!
2015 financials submitted on 10 May 2019, however, the audit began six months later on 5 November 2019, and the audited accounts were sent back to Walesi 10 months after that, on 18 September 2020.
2016 financials submitted on 10 May 2019, however, the audit began one and a half years later on 13 October, 2020, and the audited accounts were sent back nine months after that, on 12 July 2021.
2017 financials submitted on 10 July 2019, however, the audit began 10 months later on 13 October 2020, and the audited accounts were sent back 10 months after that, on 16 August 2021.
2018 financials submitted on 10 July 2019, as well, however, the audit began on 18 November 2021 - a 16-month delay. 2019 financials submitted on 20 October 2020, however the audit began on 18 November 2021 - a 13 month delay.
2020 financials submitted on 28 October 2021, and the audit for this is yet to be completed.
Walesi queried the Auditor-General multiple times in writing on the reason for the massive delays.
Walesi then offered to bear all the costs of outsourcing the audit, and it was outsourced by the AuditorGeneral whose team apparently does not have the capacity to do audits.
Despite being the cause of delays, the Auditor-General in his 2020 report, phrased the write-up about Walesi in a manner that made it seem like Walesi was causing the delay.
The mobster attitude of the OAG:
The Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport staff were treated like criminals by the Auditor-General’s staff.
One fine morning, Mr Nand’s staff barged into the ministry demanding information and documentation which included sensitive personal details of Fijians who had applied for a Government loan.
With mafia-type attitude, the team barged in without any signed Letter of Engagement, without formal or specific Entry Meeting, a request for in-person meeting flatly denied and many, many more breaches of the laws they are governed by. This was in regards to the MSME Concessional Loan programme, which again is outside the norm of an audit process!
MCTTT was not even the ministry which had the authority over the MSME concessional loans. The relevant ministry was Ministry of Economy.
Since taking up the office some five years ago, Mr Nand has hardly availed himself for any stakeholder meetings, instead opting to send junior staff to meet with permanent secretaries and directors.
He had outright refused to engage with MCTTT senior management team to solve any issues.
On 20 November 2020, it was agreed between the two ministries and the Auditor-General’s junior staff who had turned up at the meeting that all information regarding this scheme would be sourced through the Ministry of Economy.
Despite this agreement and pending formal response of MCTTT, the official from OAG turned up at the MCTTT on 26 November 2020, to again access documents.
This access was not denied as claimed by OAG. The ministry provided all access to the documents but requested that since the scheme was still ongoing, the documents are not removed from the premises.
These documents were bank details, financial details of Fijians who had applied for concessional loans and removing these documents from the ministry would have meant unnecessary delays in processing the applications. The Fijian public would have suffered!
Despite this, staff from the OAG continued to remove the documents from the ministry.
Fijian Elections Office:
Fijian Elections Office is just one of the entities tarnished by the Fiji Times and it has been shocking that neither Mr Nand nor anyone from his team felt it was their moral and ethical duty to correct the misinformation.
The financial statement of the FEO was prepared by KPMG, one of the top four accounting firms in the world.
The Auditor-General did not raise with the FEO or KPMG at the time it was in conduct of the audit in terms of its dissatisfaction with the report.
Fiji Times wrongly stated the dates for the reports that were given to the auditors.
The Auditor-General took over nine months to finalise the audit. Most of the annual reports in Fiji are late because the audit reports are never on time. In 2021, the Auditor General completed the audit of financial year 2017-2018.
Shenanigans at the OAG:
According to audit practice, the first draft report was submitted to the Auditor General on 02 July 2019.
Then his auditor left and another few auditors came onboard over nine months. The first draft had one error which was the date.
Finally, one of the many auditors asked the FEO to change the date, and which was immediately done. After that the Auditor General had the statements from 22 October 2019 until May 2020, this is when the final audit adjustments were made and the document was signed off.
The problem here also is that the Fiji Times did not deem it fit to seek a response to establish any fact. The Auditor General himself should explain why his office handled the audit process with such level of questionable competence.
Despite the obvious errors in the article which purported to report the Auditor General’s findings, there was a complete lack of interest in correcting the errors by this office.