BY JACK
ASSA
I do not know the
whereabouts of the 85% of cheques paid under the district services improvement
programme (DSIP) in 2010 as reported by The
National (11/06/2013). I even don’t know whether the 89 feeder roads of the
89 districts were constructed or not because the K89 million or K1 million each meant
for feeder road construction in each of the 89 open electorates in the country. Moreover,
it is probably the hardest thing to understand that people’s fund can be moved
only through a “telephone direction” without any documentary evidence
giving the reasons for the transfer of this large sum of money.
It is even sickening to
know that the funds could not be traced by the Auditor-General because most of them
were made at Parliament without any proper cheque signing register. It is not
the intention of this paper to dig deeper and trace the whereabouts of this
ghost money. Nevertheless, what this paper tries to bring across is the importance
of the work of the public sector auditing. Public sector must be audited to
find balance with the public sector spending.
Few years ago, the previous government already implemented the
District Treasury Rollout Program, in an effort to bring the government and the
funds closer to the people. In support, the current O’Neil-Dion Government has
embarked on an historical 2013 Budget of a record K13 billion under the theme “Sharing the Wealth and Empowering our People”,
viewing it as a people’s budget, aiming to bring the public services to the
district level. Unlike in the past budgets, this year will see millions of Kina
being pumped to the districts levels. The biggest question I have in my mind is
whether the bureaucrats at the district level have the capacity to handle such
huge amount and acquit accordingly, as per the Public Finance Management Act
(1995) and Audit Act (1981)? I’m not trying to question why the government did
what they did or to undermine the capabilities of the bureaucrats at the
district level but to challenge the local, provincial and national public fund auditors
on how they can help the politicians and bureaucrats to be accountable.
Audits can prove that something was or was not done, but cannot
identify why a person was either unable or unwilling to comply. Nor can they
predict what qualities will affect a turnaround. Clean audits in the public
sector have decreased in Papua New Guinea, indicating that only one in every 20
government functions works. Project implemented in the rural areas are not
evident. To substantiate their spending, dishonest politicians and their public
servants through professional services from accountants get receipts from the
streets and produce their development spending acquittals. The very fact is
that the paper project at Waigani cannot be verified and confirmed back at the
district.
A good auditing system should ensure probity and compliance, as
well as progress and substantive improvement, making sure lessons are learnt
from mistakes and that capacity is built to do an effective job within the
regulatory frameworks. Moreover, an auditing system that has substance is where
auditors are sent to the rural areas where development policies are implemented
and validate the acquittals. That is clearly not happening and the office auditor-general
is not examining why his auditing interventions fail to curb the problems.
There may be some factors that may impede the work of the auditors, but these
issues are worth discussing.
Professionals use standards imposed by their profession as well as
their judgment. People learn when they feel respected and appreciated for who
they are. Yet, in the public sector most auditors do not take a developmental
approach to their task and so evoke defensiveness in those who should be
learning, and rule-bound, bureaucratic caution among the rest. Thus, dilemmas
are avoided and difficult issues are swept under the carpet, perpetuating
service delivery backlogs and malfunctioning parastatals and departments.
Furthermore, new cutting edge procurement systems are readily
punted as solutions to bad governance and mismanagement. In practice, these
systems are treated as codes to be cracked by sharp legal advisers for the
benefit of crooks and others with an overblown sense of personal entitlement.
For regular business people, the “improvements” in governance become
bureaucratic red tape, hindering small enterprises – the biggest creators of
employment – from doing business with the government in the country.
This country is already in the hands of the paper projects and
fraudulent receipts and reconciliation. Back in the district or province, there
is nothing tangible to justify the acquitals. District treasury offices are
bolted with chain. Officers manning the office do not have the necessary skills
in reconciling the money being spent. Moreover, most of the bureaucrats are
cronies of the politicians. Hence, the politicians have the final say on how it
is reconciled.
Bureaucrats cannot think independently and uphold the office that
they serve. They cannot negotiate, as an intelligent and informed person could,
and, as repeated audit results show, cannot distinguish between an official who
exercises judgment and bends the rules yet adds value to the organization and
public, from one who is corrupt, greedy or reckless. The point here is that,
the actual money meant for the development is not spent. That is why the AG
needs to visit the rural districts and development sites themselves to confirm
the reconciliation before them.
The already under-resourced public services are less likely than
big private sector companies to identify faults and lead the complex process of
change, especially when discouraged by a set of damming audit results.
Manipulating the audit results in favor of one or two individual is already
evident at some levels of public sector.
Most of the developments through the public sector are ghost paper
projects. Otherwise, funds used are for the benefit of his or her political
cronies and supporters under ghost project names. Collaborating with accountants,
collecting receipts from the streets to justify the use of fund is common in
the public service today.
Public sector also have to deal with interference by fickle,
bullying politicians who – while they want to be seen to be promoting probity
and good governance – will demand that civil servants help them garner votes,
and so compromise their personal and professional judgment in order to hide
problems that may embarrass them, which in evident in PNG. To further contribute
to this problem, many districts do not have university graduate public service
holders. When half educated and political appointees take the lead, it is
likely that millions of kina will be misused and will go unaccounted.
Therefore, public auditors must prepare to visit the sites where
funds have been spent and confirm the actual projects that have been
implemented, rather than closing their books from the receipts provided.
Corruption is working at every level of the public sector. Professionals from
all works of field are facilitating corruption one way or the other. Politicians
and their cronies can manage to misuse the millions of kina earmarked for the
people but the very owners of these funds expect the auditors to do a thorough
job to find the balance in the public sector.
Over to you the public sector auditors, the ordinary citizens of
this beautiful island of gold, floating on the sea of oil are counting on you.
You have the last word, either to submit to the crock politicians and their
cronies or to the leave the audit book open and inspect the project implemented
as claimed on the acquittals. Only you will restore the last breath of hope,
transparency and accountability in the public sector.
Next week, we’ll look at Public Private
Partnership in State Owned Enterprise (SOE) to Delivering Public Services. Wish
you God’s blessings for now.
The writer
is undertaking post graduate studies and living in Indonesia. For comments and
feedbacks, he can be contacted on jackassa945@gmail.com (email) / +081273238217 (Mobile Phone).
Source; Sunday Chronicle, 16th June 2012.
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