High-risk ministries follow-up

MAJORITY of the recommendations made in the 2017 reports for different agencies are yet to be fully implemented, states the auditorgeneral’s report on the follow-up of high-risk ministries and departments that was tabled in Parliament recently.

The high-risk ministries and departments are listed as:

■ Ministry of Rural and Maritime Development and National Disaster Management;

■ Republic of Fiji Military Forces;

■ Fiji Police Force;

■ Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts;

■ Ministry of Health and Medical Services;

■ Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation and

■ Ministry of Agriculture and

Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport.

“Only 39 per cent of the recommendations were fully implemented, 27 per cent were partially implemented and 34 per cent were not implemented at all,” stated the report. Necessary action should be taken to fully implement the remaining recommendations.”

The OAG stated there was a possibility that permanent secretaries of some agencies had not been regularly updated on the status of the implementation of recommendations by their accounting heads as required.

“The implementation rate can be improved if recommendations made in this report are implemented and outstanding audit issues are included in the agenda of all monthly meetings of agencies.

“This can be achieved by the formation of audit committees by permanent secretaries.”

The role of the audit committee could be expanded to include findings or internal audits and matters relating to risk of agencies, stated the OAG.