One-third of state institutes fail to comply with rules and regulations

Tuesday, 14 November 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

PAC evaluates all institutes under its purview for the first time
Chief accounts officers to be held accountable

By Skandha Gunasekara

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has found that one-third of institutions evaluated by the committee had failed to comply with relevant rules and regulations in 2015.

Accordingly, out of the 842 institutions investigated by the committee only 58 or 7% achieved a compliance with guidelines of 90%.

Addressing Parliament soon after presenting the report to the House, PAC Chairman and Deputy Minister of Finance, Lasantha Alagiyawanna, asserted that it was the most comprehensive report compiled by PAC in the history of Parliament.

“Since 1978, PAC had presented 31 reports to Parliament. All 31 reports have only 410 institutions called before the committee. At present, PAC is responsible for evaluating 831 institutes annually, which we were able to do,” he said adding that after prolonged discussions, the committee had decided that the past responsibilities and actions of the committee were inadequate.

With regard to the ministries called before the committee, PAC has found that updated fixed assets registers and computer software and accessories registers of ministries were weak and needed to be properly maintained. Fixed asset registers of 28 out of 50 ministries that existed in 2015 had not been duly updated while 65% of total ministries (32 institutions) were not maintaining updated registers of Computer Software and Accessories.

In addition, the annual performance reports of 24 ministries (49%) for the 2015 financial year had not been submitted to Parliament. The report also reveals that 44% of special spending units of the Government had not maintained fixed assets registers while 14 of the Special Spending Unit (74%) had failed to submit annual performance reports to Parliament within the given timeframe.

A total of 19 government departments (20%) had not established audit and management committees and conducted a minimum of three meetings.

The report observed that 61 departments out of the total number evaluated (64%) had not properly maintained fixed asset registers. Nine departments out of the total had not even opened a Fixed Assets Register.

Concerning ministries, departments and special spending units at the provincial level, the report disclosed that 143 institutions (56%) had failed to maintain fixed assets registers while 107 institutions had not submitted annual action plans for 2015.

The report states that PAC will take action to recognise institutions which failed to achieve high performance levels and inform their chief accounting officers of the shortcomings and hold them accountable for the subject areas to be rectified and developed.