Who’s to blame?
Finance minister points finger at parliamentarians for ignoring some AG reports
FINANCE Minister Nigel Clarke is blaming his fellow parliamentarians for ignoring certain reports produced by the Auditor’s General Department which highlight problems in public institutions.
The finiance minister was speaking in an interview with economist Damien King at the launch of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) study entitled ‘Following the money (COVID Edition): transparency and oversight in the disbursement of COVID funds’.
“I agree that oftentimes the recommendations of the auditor general and the findings go unheeded and in some cases we do have repeat offences,” Clarke noted.
He further stressed that “in a free and democratic society the role of the supreme audit institution is crucial, which is why that institution is embedded in our constitution and reports only to Parliament and has independence, security of tenure and other institutional structures to protect the integrity of that office.”
Notwithstanding, he admitted that issues raised by the auditor general aren’t usually given much attention if there’s no political advantage to be gained from highlighting it in the public domain.
“I certainly believe that Parliament plays a very key role and whenever Parliament digs into an auditor general’s report you tend to get responses. Maybe one of the things that we have to work on is that the pursuit of auditor general’s reports tends to be over the course of time and across governments and oppositions of varying types. There’s an argument, at least, that the pursuit of auditor general’s reports through the parliamentary process has been partisan in its motivation, ie it’s pursued when there is a perceived political advantage to pursuing it,” Clarke noted.
He admitted that some reports pass through the parliamentary process without any attempt to fix the failings outlined in the report. He said that’s how certain public agencies end up with long-standing recurring problems.
“There are times when reports are produced that may not seem to have that partisan political advantage and as a result, we don’t have the uproar in Parliament. The auditor general reports to Parliament and so the solution has to rely on Parliament and the response has to be such that these reports can receive attention in the light of day even if it does not hold by perception or in reality a partisan political advantage for one side or the other.”
At the same time, the finance minister commented that “we have also seen where the auditor general’s reports lead to changes in the composition of an institution or the leadership of institutions.”
In the meantime, Clarke argued that parliamentarians aren’t the only ones at fault, he said Jamaicans must also reconstruct the way they view the auditor general’s reports.
“The culture around the reports has to also change. The kind of ‘GOTCHA’ approach sometimes, the media zeroing in and leaving out the broader context and a dramatisation. What needs to happen is that all reports need to go through the parliamentary process and receive responses and commitments for the failings to be addressed,” he stated.
The auditor general and the employees of the Auditor General’s Department are tasked with conducting independent audits in accordance with acceptable, professional and ethical standards and issue appropriate reports on the use of public resources.