Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 14/May 04:51

Scrap useless probe, Imbert

THE EDITOR: The Auditor General is tasked with a verification exercise which needs to be done within a specific deadline with the necessary information provided by the Ministry of Finance and the data submitted according to the set standard. An "anomaly" was discovered and was brought to the attention of the Ministry of Finance. This triggered a realisation that the submitting report would have to be revised to rectify this issue, requiring an adjustment of the two major components of the needs of the Auditor General, ie, time and information. The next logical step, therefore, would be to submit the necessary documents for inclusion, as well as provide the time extension. This would have to be done with proper transparency and with full consultation with the Department of the Auditor General. With an agreed date for the generation of a new report, the necessary approval should be sought, granted and approved for this exercise. So, what happened to create this abysmal embarrassment at this level? From the headlines there seemed to be an attempt to strong-arm the Auditor General into accepting the newly revised figures without proper process. The Ministry of Finance, in whose interest it was to ensure that the Auditor General was provided with all the required information, appears to be trying to correct its mistakes with her pen. Now we are seeing Colm Imbert, the minister in charge of said ministry, which is in conflict with the Auditor General, appointing an investigate team to decipher what are the issues. To quote a famous woman, "That making any sense?" Let me tell you what should have been done in the first place. When the error was discovered the appropriate communication should have been dispatched to the relevant authorities, to which they would have understood that this intricate, complex exercise would have to be redone in order to accommodate both the given and the proposed information. When both reports were completed they would have been presented with the relevant explanations to facilitate the hiccup. This would have allowed all parties to withstand scrutiny from anyone by presenting the comparable figures and supporting data from both reports to account for this development. Any discrepancies could now be ventilated with transparency and accountability. Would this be so difficult to do in this case? Yes, because it would be too easy and too ethical. The preferred method would have been to post discovery of the anomaly, go the Auditor General office and tell her fix this, we will organise the time for you and just pretend the original submissions didn't exist. Tell me, in the simplest terms, if that is what was expected from the Auditor General's office? And now tell me if that was the correct approach? And, yes, while this may seem laborious and to some extent redundant, one has to appreciate that what they are dealing with here is not basic bookkeeping for a parlour, but the nation's purse. With that in mind all efforts for transparency must be ensured, even if it includes repetition for reference. This is billions of citizens' money being played with by people who cannot seem to want to do the right thing. They prefer to create distractions and bacchanal when they can't get their own way. In the end, who loses? I am asking for the Minister of Finance to do the right thing and scrap this useless investigation, go to the Auditor General, respect her office and approach her with the necessary umbrage, present to her your figures and supporting documents, give her the time and resources to produce the report, and proceed to the next step. She has clearly stated she is willing to accommodate your mistakes. RYAN MARTINEZ Gasparillo The post Scrap useless probe, Imbert appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.