“The Ministry of Finance has 14 (audit) findings from the previous years, and as of today only two findings have been resolved (with) unresolved questioned costs worth about $2.2 million,” said the report issued by Public Accounts Chairman Sen. Frederick Muller. The Public Accounts Committee is the financial watchdog for the parliament.
The senators on the panel said they were concerned by lack of action to fix accountability problems pointed out by auditors.
“The Health Care Revenue Fund has four unresolved prior years findings,” the report said. “These are in relation to timely reconciliation of (bank) statements and mostly procurement issues.” The report said the Ministry of Health has for years given the same excuse for not fixing the problems — lack of staff to do the accounting job. Meanwhile, auditors have questioned Health Care Revenue Fund spending of more than $400,000, the report said.
Outside of the Ministries of Finance and Health, Ebeye Island’s utility company KAJUR, Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority, Majuro Atoll Waste company, Marshall Islands Postal Services Authority, Marshall Islands Visitors Authority and Tobolar have prior year problems that have not been fixed, the report said.
In addition to audit problems, the committee questioned the over-spending by the Marshall Islands government on an electricity subsidy to Majuro landowners, which was budgeted at $462,979 but the government actually spent $1,150,219 in FY 2010. Similarly, it had budgeted $673,932 for land leases but ended up paying $865,778.
“The committee is concerned with the (landowner-related) over-expenditures,” the report said.
The panel spent three weeks of public hearings in late July and early August reviewing government spending for FY 2010. The panel discovered the government gave the National Telecommunications Authority over $1 million to pay off an NTA loan with Bank of Marshall Islands and gave Air Marshall Islands $235,541, which was also used to cover a loan default at the same bank. Both of these amounts were not included in the FY 2010 Nitijela-approved budget. All government spending is required to be approved by Nitijela.
