Roberts-Risden: No $3.3 billion missing from Labour Ministry
Published:Tuesday | February 9, 2021 | 2:31 PM
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Colette Roberts-Risden, has lashed the press for “seeking to sow a seed of discord and chaos” in her ministry.
In her opening remarks at today’s meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the ministry’s accounting officer charged that there had been “much discussion, stories and mistruths regarding the state of affairs within her ministry”.
“There have been many negative comments about my character and integrity, the staff and the ministry in general,” she stated.
According to Roberts-Risden there were some who seemed determined to “make their names at the expense of others whilst trying to sow a seed of discord and chaos”.
The permanent secretary accused “one publication” of misleading the public by stating that $49 billion was misappropriated at the ministry.
However, in a January 17, 2021 Gleaner article headlined, “Billions at risk”, it was reported that “poor decisions at dozens of government departments have exposed more than $40 billion of taxpayers’ money to loss, misuse, an analysis of the last two auditor general annual reports, have shown.”
The permanent secretary then declared: “But I guess when they realised that figure was ridiculous it changed to $3.3 billion. I could not figure out where this $3.3 billion figure was coming from, but one of my very capable staff figured it out and she said ‘PS of this amount $2.95 billion relates to outstanding NIS contributions that was owed from employers in 2014/2015’.”
Seeking to account for the $3.3 billion, Roberts-Risden told PAC members that “$123.5 million relates to journal vouchers that were prepared late; $173.42 million relates to expenditure adjustment journals; $40 million and $36 million respectively relates to amounts and used to pay the salaries of staff in 2016 and 2017.”
Additionally, Roberts-Risden mentioned $5.99 million which related to bank charges, some of which she claimed were erroneously applied and has since been reversed, and $5.3 million which related to “unreconciled amounts that we are in discussions with the auditor general to resolve.”
She contended that there was no $3.3 billion missing at the ministry.
The Auditor General’s Department’s annual report which was tabled in Parliament recently, highlighted a pattern of unresponsiveness to internal audits by the management of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.
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