The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Public Treasury’s top official blasted the government for failing to provide sufficient resources to improve financial management and cash flow.

Eugenia Cartwright, the treasurer, in a memorandum that was revealed with yesterday’s publication of the government’s financial statements for the year to end-June 2017, said the Ministry of Finance’s “non-approval of funding” had delayed the roll-out of the Treasury Financial Accounting system on Abaco.

Pointing out that the island was (pre-Hurricane Dorian) the government’s then-second highest revenue earner after New Providence, Ms Cartwright said the delay had hindered efforts to improve timely financial reporting and cash flow.

And she warned that the Public Treasury’s training room equipment “no longer functions” with efforts to obtain financing for its replacement again falling on deaf ears at the Ministry of Finance. This was despite repeated requests from other government agencies to be trained in principles of sound financial management.

Referring to training conducted for the heads of all government departments in Abaco, and revenue agency staff, Ms Cartwright wrote: “Both training sessions in Abaco were done in preparation for the roll-out of the Treasury Financial Accounting system in December 2016, which would have improved the timeliness of reporting and also the cash flow.

“However, the non-approval of funding from the Ministry of Finance to purchase the required hardware has delayed the implementation. It is unfortunate that special consideration was not given to this area seeing that Abaco is the second-highest revenue generating island. We trust this will be resolved in this upcoming fiscal period.”

Ms Cartwright added that the Public Treasury had for several years been receiving requests to provide training for ministries, departments and entities such as the Education School Board in areas such as cash receipts, payrolls and bank reconciliations.

“As you have been made aware,” she said in her report to the Ministry of Finance, “our training room facilities need to be updated as the equipment no longer functions and we have not been successful in achieving funding from the Ministry of Finance from the same.

“We again call upon you to address the matter, and trust you will approve the funding so that we can proceed with these training requests without delay. Despite the inoperability of the equipment in our training room, we were able to carry out two training sessions for the newly-recruited Family Island administrators.

Ms Cartwright said the Public Treasury had been informed that the timeline for the introduction of accrual-based accounting across the Government had been adjusted, and added the latter’s financial statements were “95 percent compliant” with International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS).