State board proposal falls short
... after Bunting suggests blocking reappointments at delinquent bodies
Published:Friday | November 10, 2023 | 12:10 AM
A proposal by Senator Peter Bunting for the Government to stop reappointing state board members who preside over years of outstanding annual reports has fallen short of a workable remedy, according to Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke.
Acknowledging that “the substance of the matter” raised by Bunting was worthy of discussion, Clarke told The Gleaner that the suggestion could not be taken on board.
He argued that a particular group of board members cannot be held responsible for unfurnished audits that cover periods in which they were not yet appointed to the boards of the delinquent agencies.
Clarke said that persons who are appointed board members in agencies where there were outstanding annual reports would have as their first order of business the clearance of the backlog years before attending to those that cover the period of their service.
“In those situations, you will very well find that there may be no annual reports produced for the period of their service, but that does not mean that they did not discharge their functions – as they would have covered the backlog,” he explained.
In his 2022 Budget presentation, Clarke announced the provision of just under $90 million for the Auditor General’s Department, which was aimed at clearing a number of unaudited financial statements prepared by some statutory bodies and executive agencies.
“I believe that that project is going well in reducing the backlog that existed,” he said.
Last week, Bunting made the suggestion to cease reappointing board members who preside over agencies and public bodies whose annual reports remain outstanding for years.
He noted that several government departments and agencies have been tardy in preparing and submitting their annual reports to the Cabinet.
Bunting highlighted the Jamaica Urban Transit Company Limited, the National Works Agency, and the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management as public- sector entities whose annual reports remain outstanding for years.
Checks on the website of the Cabinet Office show that several public bodies and departments of government continue to perform dismally when it comes to the submission of annual reports.