Scrutiny of Fiji accounts going well

Transcript

The chair of Fiji's Public Accounts Committee says its members are cooperating well as they scrutinise seven years' worth of government accounts.

The parliamentary committee has a backlog of Auditor General reports to probe after years of military rule when Fiji was without a parliament.

The committee had a troubled start after the September election as government MPs took issue with the leadership of Dr Prasad who has been a strong critic of the handling of government finances.

But he told Sally Round that issue is now in the past.

BIMAN PRASAD: The Public Accounts Committee substantive meeting got off to a very good start. We have been able to look at the 2007 and 2008 (Auditor General) reports. We called a number of senior civil servants. So in a sense we are progressing well with the scrutiny of the Auditor General reports for 2007 and 08 and 09 and we hope to provide a composite report to the Parliament at its May sitting. The committee will meet again for a number of days and we hope to finalise a report that will go to the first sitting of Parliament in May.

SALLY ROUND: You've called several officials to come before the committee. Where from?

BP: Mainly from the Ministry of Finance, Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and Environment. We hope to call others as we continue to meet.

SR: And did you get the clarification you needed from those officials?

BP: Yes I must say that the officials, they all responded very well and we are pleased with the response from the public servants in complying with the requirements to appear before the committee and provide us with information that we need.

SR: Because of course it's a huge job. You've got seven or eight years worth of reports to go through. How are you breaking down the job?

BP: It's, as you said quite rightly, a big job. It's going to take a lot of time and we want to tell the people of this country that we are looking at the backlog from 2007 and so it's going to take time and we hope that we're going to do a good job in bringing out all the issues and making appropraite recommendations to Parliament and in the process refer cases of abuse, perceived corruption and other mismanagement to the appropriate authorities as we go along.

SR: Can you give us some idea of the mood in the meetings given that there were questions raised over your chairmanship of the committee last year.

BP: Well I think that's behind us and I'm very pleased with the contribution of the three government members. I would rate their performance as excellent and I'm very pleased with the bipartisan approach that we have taken in the Public Accounts Committee so that's one of the very positive things from my point of view.

SR: And are there any glaring issues you can highlight as a result of going through these reports?

BP: We are referring cases where we feel it is necessary to appropriate agencies and the recommendations and the discussions will be reported to Parliament in May, at least for the 2007, 08 and 09 reports. We expect senior government officials to have looked at the Auditor General's reports  and we expect them to have taken actions already and if they haven't they should, and where the Public Accounts Comittee feels that it has not been done we will have no hesitation in referring those cases to those agencies.