Government told — Watch it!

THE public debt has crossed the $24 billion mark and the Auditor General has warned the Government through the Minister of Finance to ensure that the debt does not get out of control.

The report of the Auditor General on the public accounts for the financial year 2001-2002 was laid in the Senate yesterday by Junior Finance Minister Conrad Enill. At September 30, 2002, the public debt stood at $20,636,406,600.92 with interest that amounted to $3,753,964,560.51. The report also lists financial matters relating to the functioning of Government departments including theft and over payments to the tune of more than $6 million.

In her report, Auditor General Jocelyn Thompson recommended that in view of the significant level of the public debt and charges, “the financial managers of the State should take appropriate action to review the trend in borrowing with a view to establishing an overall national standard, or limit, to ensure that the public debt does not exceed acceptable international standards.” The report also revealed that the balance on the Exchequer Account dropped sharply when compared with the previous two years. At the end of 2000, the balance stood at $1,281,901,401.12. It rose to $1,343,329,803.49 at the end of 2001. But the balance dropped to $423,709,530.40 at September 30, 2002.

The Auditor General added, “It is recommended that the financial managers of the public service exercise extreme care in the management of the resources of the Consolidated Fund to prevent any reversion to the negative balances on the Exchequer Account which were experienced prior to the financial year 2000.” In the report, the Auditor General reported that there were 2,773 cases of overpayment totalling $6,390,389.23. It was also disclosed that amounts totalling $2,671,135.04 were recovered. The AG recommended that accounting officers should continue to take the necessary action to reduce the incidence of overpayment.

The biggest case was in the Police Service where $2,510,059.02 was paid out. Of that amount, $1,087,899.61 was recovered. There was an overpayment of $1,629,194.29 to the Ministry of Education with recovery being just $374,225.07. There was an overpayment of $164,158.73 to Parliament but the majority of that amount was recovered. It was also observed that income tax deductions were not made from the monthly salaries of three officers of the Industrial Court over the period January 2000 to May 2002 resulting in overpayments totalling $491,941.

In another instance, overpayment of emoluments totalling $33,146 was made to an officer over the period 1973 to 1999. Efforts to recover the overpayments were not seen, but permission was being sought to have the accounts written off by the Comptroller of Accounts. According to the Auditor General, the officer was still paid a one month salary advance of $4,404 during the year in respect of arrears of increments.