We've reported heavily on the Auditor General's report on the furious flurry of land transactions at the Ministry of Natural Resources in the months leading up to the 2008 general election.
But the Annual report of the Auditor General for the 2008 to 2009 fiscal year has attracted very little attention, and that's simply because it's not sexed up with hints of scandal and wrongdoing.
But it does raise legitimate issues, about questionable transactions, blasé record keeping, and general disregard for accounting procedure. That's par for the course in a breathless bureaucracy, but it's hardly acceptable for a government elected on a platform of transparency and accountability.
Still, the Prime Minister bristled at the suggestion of comparisons between the apparent laxity of his government and the well documented failings of the Musa administration.
Adele Ramos, Reporter
"It would appear from the reading of the 08-09 audit report that your administration has been running basically the same kind of ship as the former administration in terms of accountability, documents being missing, seems it appears that you are running the same kind of ship."
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Well I don't know how you could make that kind of a judgment. It's one thing to talk about failures in terms of systems and sins of omission; its quite another thing to talk about sins of commission. You don't find anything like the scandals that resulted from deliberate calculated abuse of power including the financial rules and regulations that were such a feature of the last administration."
Adele Ramos, Reporter
"The pet peeve according to the auditor general, his pet peeve is the recurring issue of documentation not being available, sometimes no responses from people like for example the saw mill at KOLBE for $66,000.00, there was no response when there was a query with regards to that saw mill."
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"I mean to have a meeting with the financial secretary; I mean for this matter to be discussed in Cabinet and at the CEO level so that we can try to come up with some determination to improve things even if it's in an incremental fashion and I certainly am pinning great hopes on the revamped finance and audit act and on the revamped and expanded finance and stores regulations. As I said, both at the level of the parent act and at the level of the subsidiary legislation. The new dispensation will include penalties."
