Auditor General says public accountability is improving

Ahead of his presentation to parliament today, Obadiah Biraro, the Auditor General, has revealed that overall public accountability has improved. Biraro will this afternoon present to both chambers of Parliament the audit report for the financial year 2012/2013, which ended on June 30, last year. In an interview with The New Times yesterday, Biraro said although he couldn’t divulge the report’s details beforehand, he is confident that issues raised in the previous report were followed up and handled well. “On average, 60 per cent of the issues we raised in the previous report were handled quite well and finalised, while more of them are being handled with encouraging progress. Issues regarding professional accounting and compliance to principles of the organic law regarding public finance have also tremendously improved,” Biraro said. Biraro, however, called on ministries to improve the capacity of their staff, saying many of them still lack the skills to understand the “value of public funds” or to manage professional accounting systems. “Ministries should now be in position to help their aligned agencies especially public enterprises on accountability and public finance management,” he added. Finance, agriculture, public service and local government ministries as well as, Western and Northern province administrators had clean audit records and were not summoned by the Public Accounts Committee. On the other hand, however, some institutions were faulted for failing to implement previous Auditor General’s recommendations on financial management. Generally, cases of embezzlement of public funds dwindled drastically from Rwf657 million in the 2010/2011 fiscal year to about Rwf22.8 million in the 2011/2012 fiscal year. The government introduced audit missions in 2000 and by 2002, over 90 audits had been carried out in ministries, government owned operations, provinces and districts. Following the success of audit missions to clamp down on misuse of public funds, the Office of the Auditor General for State finances was finally established in 2003, with a mission to publish honest reports on the use of public resources.

National

Auditor General says public accountability is improving