Biman calls for inquiry into quality of spending

NATIONAL Federation Party Professor Biman Prasad has called on the Government to have an independent investigation into the quality of spending and wastage that have occurred over the years.

Speaking in the Parliament yesterday, Professor Prasad said in about six years, between 2015 and 2020, an average of about $500 million a year had been wasted.

“If this Government has the courage, they will have an independent inquiry into the quality of this spending and the wastage,” he said this while debating on the review of the 2017-2018 Whole of Government Audit Reports Consolidated Report’ which was tabled on February 8 2022.

He said financial control was at the apex of any parliamentary system.

“And basically, what we see in this report, and the result that has been talked about by honourable Radrodro is because we have made the Public Accounts Committee weak because we changed the standing orders, we basically reduced them to looking at where the money has gone, how it is gone, what sort of spending.

“And in Parliament, we need a quality debate on policies I mean, they say you can’t question policies.

“Public Accounts Committee, which comprises of members of Parliament, must have the ability to bring recommendations, to bring questions about policy, which they see has led to wastage, which has led to pilferage, which has not led to quality spending.”

He said as members of the Public Accounts Committee and Parliament, this should be taken seriously and have investigations where appropriate to ensure that all the recommendations, all the policies, all the processes were adhered to so that there were no wastage of money.