Mickela Panday
It cannot be denied that one of the major contributing factors that lead to the unceremonious fall of the People's Partnership government on September 7 was the public's perception of wanton wastage, corruption, and lack of accountability and transparency with our nation's finances. Principally because it was upon those tenets they mounted their campaign and rode convincingly into government providing the hope that would usher in the true change that we, the people of T&T, were so desperate to see.
With our unhealthy dependency on oil and gas, coupled with plummeting oil prices since last December hovering over our heads as a constant reminder that it was imperative to save for a rainy day, it soon became clear to the population that it was untenable to continue along that path without facing serious economic challenges. And so it came as no surprise to the citizenry to hear those sentiments being echoed in the People's National Movement's first budget since taking up office.
That being said, I have chosen to leave the more in-depth economic analysis to my learned colleagues in that field and have instead chosen to limit my commentary to the accountability and transparency of the Government's spending of our nation's financial resources after the budget has been passed.
Under our Constitution, after monies have been allocated in the national budget to the various ministries it is the auditor general, appointed by the President of the Republic of T&T in consultation with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, who has the responsibility of examining the management of resources within the public sector.
That is to say, he or she is required by law to examine and report annually to Parliament on the accounts of ministries, departments, regional health authorities, regional corporations, state controlled enterprises, statutory boards and the like.
In light of the recent revelations on the state of the economy the question therefore arises, if the role of the auditor general exists to provide Parliament with independently derived audit information, does the Constitution truly act as a watchdog over the spending of our country's money? The answer is no.
The reason being, as we have seen from successive reports laid in the Parliament, the duties and powers of the auditor general derived from Part III of the Exchequer and Audit Act to "inquire into and audit the accounts of all accounting officers and receivers of revenue and all persons entrusted with the assessment of, collection, receipt, custody, issue or payment of public moneys...," are severely limited by the reluctance of the various ministries to provide the information requested.
A recent example can be found in the 2014 report where the auditor general reiterated the "numerous instances where ministries and departments disregarded the financial regulations and instructions set down for state bodies." Alarmingly, one such offender was the office of the Prime Minister where under the heading, "Documents not Produced," the report stated the reconciliation statement and a list of unpaid cheques as at September 30, 2014, "were not submitted to the auditor general as required, nor was the void cheques register updated since September 28, 2012."
So what action can the auditor general take with respect to issues such as these raised in his or her report to ensure accountability and transparency? And further, what guarantee do we the citizenry have that this Government will not be guilty of behaving in the same manner as its predecessors?
The simple answer is none, because under the current law the auditor general has no power to take action against the offenders. It is the responsibility of the executive/management of the respective agency to take action on matters raised in the report laid in Parliament.
Further, in the absence of true constitutional reform we have no guarantee that this Government will not behave in the same unacceptable manner as its predecessors because under our current system of governance, the Government of the day essentially controls the same Parliament that is supposed to provide the checks and balances that would ensure accountability and transparency. More worryingly, without a true separation of powers we are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past.