[Source: Parliament of the Republic of Fiji/ Facebook]

The Ministry of Finance has taken significant steps to bolster its internal control systems, following a special investigation report by the Auditor General’s Office.

The report shed light on alleged financial discrepancies related to the 52nd Asian Development Bank (ADB) Annual Meeting Event hosted by the Ministry of Civil Service, prompting a thorough reevaluation of existing procedures.

During a presentation to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Manager of the Pension and Payroll Treasury Department Sanjay Chand outlined the measures taken to rectify the situation and enhance financial oversight.

Chand emphasized that any ministry department seeking to initiate mass voiding of payments must now request approval from the Ministry of Finance’s Financial Management Information System.

“So the liability lies now with FMIs in terms of mass voiding. However, the respective ministries departments are still able to void single vouchers and this is closely monitored by FMIs only certain restricted accounting heads or senior accounting officers in the respective ministries are authorized to carry out these responsibilities so that any mishaps as such should not happen in the situation in front of us.”

The Ministry of Civil Service was given the responsibility to plan the international event, which attracted over 3000 attendees from 76 countries.

As the host country, the former government allocated $10 million to meet the costs of the event, and upon completion of the meeting, the actual cost incurred was $10.9 million following which the Auditor General’s Office conducted a special investigation.

The focus of the investigation was the 52nd ADB Annual Meeting Event funds received and expenses by the Ministry of Civil Service while carrying out its responsibility of planning and hosting the Event for the period ending 31/07/19.

The special investigation report highlighted limitation in the Financial Management Information System which enabled mass voiding of transaction and deleting system generated reports.

Chand says the incident only happened due to the alleged laxity from some of the ministry staff in terms of internal control systems as they failed to adhere to financial management information system.