By Landing Colley
Director of the National Audit has told National Assembly select committee on regional government and land Ombudsman and IEC that his office faced lots of difficulties in auditing the Area Councils and due to that all councils in the country lack credible financial statement.
Bakery Trawally, revealed this to lawmakers on Tuesday as the seven area councils officials appeared before select committee.
“We know that all the public institutions are facing capacity issue, but dealing with the area council I don’t think capacity is a problem in auditing their financial statement,” he said.
He added: “The National audit has been going to all the area council to audit but unfortunately the problem was the creditable financial statement is lacking and what they says is that there was a capacity issue for them to prepare the financial statement.”
He told the committee that doesn’t prevent the national audit council from auditing all the area council.
Meanwhile, Musa Amul Nassy, chairman of the select committee said: “I am not saying they did not respect the agreement we had with them because all council members were able to submit their financial statement despite some of them not meeting the deadline.”
But all the seven administrative councils finally submitted their financial statement but only two had passed before the deadline and the rest where outside the deadline, and their Activity Report and procurement Compliance Report have not been submitted.
The select committee in its last meeting made an agreement with all the area council concerning the deadline for the submission of the Financial Statement, Activity Report and procurement Compliance Report which and set the date to 31st May 2020, five months back.
