The Acting Auditor General, Robert Cohen, has publicly released the Office of Auditor General Annual Report 2014 on its operations in both 2012 and 2013 which was presented to the new Speaker of the 10th Parliament on 18 December 2014 for distribution to Members.
The Acting Auditor General said that the report discloses the details of the Office’s audits on the accounts of the national government, the nine provincial governments, and thirteen state owned enterprises and statutory authorities.
Although also responsible for the audit of the Honiara City Council accounts, the Auditor General’s Office had not received any financial statements from the Council since 2010.
In order to promote an increase in transparency, the Acting Auditor General said that his 2014 annual report provides more detail than previously on the results of financial statement audits conducted on the state owned enterprises and statutory authorities while protecting any commercially sensitive information in the process.
“Good quality and timely financial reporting, underpinned by strong internal controls, serves as a solid foundation for encouraging high quality service delivery to the public – and it is hoped that greater public scrutiny of the management issues affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of these organisations will encourage boards and managements to accelerate their adoption of recommendations made by this Office,” the Acting Auditor General said.
The Office’s report also summarises the results of two performance audits released in the period on management by the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources of Solomon Islands’ fishing rights in its exclusive economic zone issued in 2012, and management of tertiary scholarships by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development issued in 2013 the Acting Auditor General said.
The Acting Auditor General said that a lot of improvements had been noticed during 2014 for many of the ministries, some of the provincial governments and some of the agencies that had not performed so well during the 2012 and 2013 period subject of his report; and reporting procedures were being put in place so that the Office’s Annual Report on its 2014 audits will be released a lot earlier in 2015 to ensure that the information will be more up to date.
