Health ministry faces March 2025 deadline for overdue financial statements
Published:Thursday | July 18, 2024 | 12:09 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Health and Wellness has been given a March 2025 deadline to submit overdue financial statements for the past 10 years to Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis, to review nearly $700 billion in taxpayer spending.
For years, the Auditor General’s Department has highlighted in its annual reports the various ministries, departments, and agencies that have failed to submit overdue financial statements as required by the Financial Administration and Audit (FAA) Act.
But even as the health and wellness ministry moves to clear the backlog, which dates back to 2103, it must first tackle the major issue of numerous “unsigned payment vouchers” that current officers are refusing to sign.
Ministry officials told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that several authorising officers have refused to sign off on payment vouchers prepared by their predecessors, who were no longer at the ministry.
In an internal memorandum tabled in Parliament, an officer at the ministry wrote to a senior colleague citing provisions in the FAA Act, which prescribe, among other penalties, surcharge for persons who sign vouchers where improper payments were made.
‘Unsigned vouchers’
At the same time, the internal audit unit has refused to sign off on the appropriation accounts because of the “unsigned vouchers”.
In a statement, Permanent Secretary Dunstan Bryan said that “the internal audit unit was unable to certify the majority of the reports due to the fact that statements contained errors”.
A table from the ministry provided a breakdown of the 10-year backlog of appropriation accounts for the ministry, the Department of Government Chemist and the Bellevue Hospital.
It said that as at June 30, 2024, three of seven outstanding statements had been certified for the Department of Government Chemist, while four of 10 statements for the Bellevue Hospital had been certified.
However, none of the 22 outstanding statements for the Ministry of Health and Wellness has been certified. This means only seven of the ministry’s overall 39 outstanding statements have been certified.
Bryan told the PAC that in conducting the 10-year backlog project, the ministry identified some 1,340 vouchers that were not properly validated due to the lack of authorising signatures at various levels.
Government lawmaker Dwight Sibblies raised concerns about the absence of signatures on vouchers in the ministry.
“Why is it that we are having payment vouchers not going through the system but transactions are completed?” he asked. “This is a gaping hole that needs to be closed to ensure accountability.”
Barrington Thomas, principal director of the Accounting and Financial Policy Branch at the Ministry of Finance, told PAC members that while there was a proliferation of late submissions of financial statements, he is not aware of multiple entities in the public sector where there are unsigned payment vouchers.
“This matter is not something that comes to the Ministry of Finance on a regular basis,” he said.
However, Bryan pointed out that there are 391 outstanding financial statements across ministries, departments and agencies, spanning 2009 to 2023. In addition, he said there are 184 outstanding appropriation accounts, of which the health and wellness ministry accounts for 39.
“And I am saying, until you have done the root-cause analysis on all of the 184, you cannot definitively say that the issues that we have identified in the Ministry of Health are not existing in other ministries,” he said.
Bryan indicated that eventually, the vexed unsigned voucher issue would land on his desk as the accounting officer.
“The auditors are not going to certify the appropriation accounts without it and, therefore, once I have exhausted it and I have been properly advised, eventually, I will just have to sign and take accountability for it,” he said.
However, Carolyn Lewis, deputy auditor general, signalled that if the appropriation accounts could not stand up to scrutiny, the auditor general would issue a qualified opinion.
A qualified opinion is issued by an auditor if there is insufficient evidence to authenticate financial statements and other accounting discrepancies exist.