Region Six urged to put brakes on neglect of vehicle logs

PPP/C MP Bibi Shadick on Monday slammed the Region 6 administration for being unable to present the auditors with any of the log books for the 66 vehicles used in the region.

At the time, Region 6 Regional Executive Officer Badase Poonai and a team of officials were appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to answer questions relating to the 2009 Auditor General Report. In the report, the Auditor General had pointed to the failure of the region to present log books for audit.

Bibi Shadick

According to the report, “Amounts totalling $156.743M were expended on the purchase of fuel lubricants. Of the sixty-six serviceable vehicles, plant and equipment owned and controlled by the Regional Administration, and for which log books were required to be maintained, no log books were presented for the entire year audited. As a result, it could not be determined that the fuel issued to vehicles, plant and equipment were efficiently and properly utilised and that proper controls were exercised over the use of these vehicles,” the report said.

Shadick severely criticised the region for failing to adhere to the accepted standards. “I am going to say something here that will make me very unpopular. But for an entire region, that has 66 vehicles that have to be used and to present no single log book for audit is thumbing its nose at authorities and the audit system,” she said.

The Region at the hearing disclosed that it has made some attempt to remedy the situation, but Shadick was still not satisfied. “Now, in the update, out of 66 they find 25; that is not even a half. And the thing is we have sat here…at the 31st December you retire the log book, you keep it on a shelf, leave it there, so when the auditors come they find it and issue a new book on the 1st January,” Shadick said.

Asked by PAC Chair-    person, PNCR-1G MP Volda Lawrence, to explain the cause of the problem, Poonai said that the log books were not being properly written up by the persons with the responsibility to do so. When pressed, he disclosed that the various programme managers are responsible for ensuring this is done.

According to him, the vehicles are used by various divisions in the ministry, including the Health, Agri-cultural and Educational departments. Poonai said that the field auditors have been instructed to ensure that the log books are properly written up.  Shadick urged that monthly checks be made to ensure that the log books are in order. She also suggested that the defaulting persons be subjected to penalties.

Meanwhile, the PAC also criticsed the Regional officials for their failure to reduce the outstanding cheque orders, particularly for the period 1998 to 2005.  The report showed that between1998 and 2005, there were 241 outstanding orders valued $112,530.

Despite efforts being made to reduce the number of outstanding orders in recent years, PAC urged that a greater effort be made to clear the older outstanding cheque orders.

The Region 6 Adminis-tration was instructed by the PAC to submit a report on progress being made on the issues highlighted on Monday by May 20.