Transcript
PAUL BARKER: The IFMS has been a major programme which has been taking a very long time to roll out. The government has had three different financial management systems, and the provinces have been operating under one system. And the Works Department which has major funding has been under another system. And then the IFMS came in relatively recently and is being rolled out in the central agencies. And now finally it's being rolled out at the sub national level. But the lack of a financial management system, and integrated financial management system has really meant that the Finance Department over the course of time has not been in a position to assess at any one stage exactly the state of the government's overall financial status. And because of slow reporting back under these different systems, and also we don't have really a very effective public accounts and public auditing system, the state of the public accounts are usually in a pretty poor state.
JENNY MEYER: So the Minister of Finance has said that there could be up to a billion kina missing which is the equivalent of US$300 million, do you think this new system will make the economy of Papua New Guinea more transparent if it comes off and works how it should?
PB: Well the IFMS certainly should help make the whole system more effective, more transparent. I know that there are a lot of concerns however. Certainly the government needs to get their hands, they're trying to get their hands on a lot of money that may be sitting around the system in bank accounts and trust accounts and so on. Because they're desperately short of revenue, desperately short of funds and expenditure is running well ahead of revenues. On the other hand they've introduced this new financial regularisation legislation to try and help the national government access any funds from all the statutory authorities and other bodies. Now of course those funds, some of them, certainly its illogical for these agencies to have accumulated such large amounts of money from fisheries in licence fees and so on, and it's like instead of revenue going to the state it's sometimes become revenue going to these institutions that then build up a big programme and are spending a lot of money on their own activities. On the other hand most of those funds are just being collected for those statutory authorities to perform their functions. Whether it's the Minerals Authority or a Coffee Board or whatever. So those funds, most of them do not have a lot of money sitting in those funds, they'll be small amounts and it's their working, it's their operating capital. So one would be surprised if the amounts are as large as the Minister is suggesting. But certainly some of those agencies like the Fisheries Authority have put a substantial amount of money.. Although the Finance Department should have a pretty good idea of what the actual amount are. But it's certainly true that some have accumulated considerable amounts of money which are still public funds.