It’s time someone is charged in connection with the wrongdoings highlighted in the annual Auditor General’s reports, says Bishop Gerry Seale.
If this was done, he said, all those concerned – from the average civil servant, to their managers and the political directorate – would start taking their responsibility to Government’s finances more seriously.
In this vein, Seale, the presiding bishop of the Barbados District of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the West Indies, told the SATURDAY SUN it was “now beyond distressing” to read the Auditor General’s annual report, and described the 2013 edition recently laid in Parliament as “more than painful”.
That report, among other serious matters, criticised the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) for its many errors in overpaying refunds, using the cash-based system of accounting rather than the accrual method as it is required to do, failing to provide bank reconciliations and ignoring the Auditor General’s requests to inspect its documents, among several other issues.
As a result, the report added that the figures provided to the Treasury of the money collected by the IRD were unreliable.
