“Keep your hands off Development Budget”
By AATAI JOHN
THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has warned government line ministries to stop applying for funds in the Development Budget to fund expenditures categorised under the recurrent budget.
This was revealed by PAC Chairman Rick Hou when the Attorney General (AG) and his officers appeared before his committee.
Mr Hou was questioning the virements made to reallocate funds acquired from the Development Budget to meet expenses committed in the recurrent budget.
The chairman said the practice of reallocating funds from development budget to recurrent budget is illegal under the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act, therefore it must stop.
He warned the line ministries which continue such practices to put a stop to such illegal virements.
“This should not be encouraged and ministries must know that this practice is illegal under the PFM Act.”
But in a recent clarification made by Minister for Finance Snyder Rini, he revealed that when a ministry is applying for their supplementary in the Contingency Warrant, they must firstly identify the savings to fund their extra needs.
Hence, some ministries used to resort to development budget.
