(Trinidad Express) The Auditor General’s report on Trinidad and Tobago’s public accounts for Government’s financial year 2012 (October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012) has revealed that Government ministries paid millions of dollars in overpayments to contract employees.
There was a lack of documentation to verify million-dollar expenditures at certain Government ministries.
There was also failure in many instances to respond to requests for more expenditure information despite ballooning budgets, the Auditor General’s report showed.
Dated April 29, 2013, the report was signed by Auditor General Sharman Ottley and was submitted to Speaker of the House Wade Mark that day.
Ottley noted that the examination of records and documents showed that in many instances there was non-compliance with financial instructions, financial regulations and other financial directives while reports on appropriation accounts were not received from 13 accounting officers by the Auditor’s General Office up to January 31, 2013. And up to April 15 this year, ahead of the report’s submission to Parliament, there were no responses from 19 permanent secretaries or heads of departments.
The Auditor General took issue with:
1. The lack of inventory controls at the various ministries.
2. Signed lease agreements were not produced for several properties for which rental payments were made—three locations at the Ministry of National Security for a total monthly rental of $1.2 million; one location from the Ministry of the Attorney General for a monthly rental of $486,774.60; five locations for the Ministry of Food Production for a total monthly rental of $606,473.74; and two locations for the Ministry of Tobago Development at a total monthly rental of $92,000 a month.
3. Signed contracts were not provided for a number of contracts paid.
Eight contracts at the Ministry of National Security amounting to $5.9 million were not seen; 17 contracts at the Ministry of Education amounting to $4 million were not seen; four contracts at the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure valued at $6.8 million were not seen; as well as five contracts at the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service which amounted to $2.3 million. “Replies were received from 26 permanent secretaries/heads of departments indicating that amounts totaling $224.4 million were paid to 2,239 persons employed in contract positions during the financial year ended 30th September, 2012.
