STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AUDIT REPORT ON MUNICIPAL COUNCILS 2014-2017 Verbatim Report Sigatoka Town Council TUESDAY, 21ST JANUARY, 2020 VERBATIM NOTES OF THE MEETING OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE HELD IN THE SIGATOKA TOWN COUNCIL CHAMBERS, SIGATOKA, ON TUESDAY, 21ST JANUARY, 2020 AT 10.00 A.M. Submittee: Sigatoka Town Council In Attendance: 1. Ms. Mohini Nair Manager Finance 2. Mr. Anand Pillay Manager Health Inspection 3. Mr. Davendra Rao Acting Chief Executive Officer 4. Mr. Amenio N Manager Projects 5. Mr. Sharan Singh Manager Traffic 6. Mr. Adish Naidu Special Administrator 7. Mr. Anil Chandra Special Administrator Ministry of Local Government 1. Mr. Alipate Mataivilia Senior Accounts Officer 2. Mr. Navin Chandra Acting Director Office of the Attorney General 1. Ms. Alani Draunidalo Audit Manager 2. Mr. Sairusi Bulai Senior Auditor ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MR. CHAIRMAN.- Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing on the Audit Report on Municipal Councils for 2013 (Parliamentary Paper No.135 of 2018). I once again welcome you all. On behalf of the PAC, let me introduce the Honourable Members of our Committee. Before we begin with face to face meeting with Sigatoka Town Council on the Annual Report that had been submitted to the Council. Before we proceed I request Mr. Mitieli Uculoa to lead us with a word of prayer. (Prayer – Mr. M. Uculoa) MR. CHAIRMAN.- Thank you Mitieli for leading us with a word of prayer. Apologies, I believe we have two apologies this morning, the first one from Honourable Ratu Naiqama who is supposed to be replaced by Honourable Adi Litia Qionibaravi but she is running in late and also Honourable Aseri Radrodro who has been replaced by Honourable Mikaele Leawere. (Introduction of Committee Members and Secretariat by the Honourable Chairman) Anything said in this meeting, I would just to inform you that it is going to be public. So, if you are actually saying anything please be mindful what you are saying because the Minutes and the Hansard Report will be available to the media as well as public. On that note, I would like the 2 |Verbatim Report Tuesday, 21st January, 2020 Special Administrator for Sigatoka Town Council to introduce their team before we can go into submission proper, thank you. MR. A. NAIDU.- Thank you Honourable Members and Honourable Chair. Welcome to Sigatoka. I am sitting here as one of the Special Administrators appointed by the Government last September. So, I am here basically as an observer for the moment because I do not have privy of any other information which happened before our time. But I am available for questions if you need because I can talk about our future aspirations of Sigatoka would want to be. (Introduction of the team from Sigatoka Town Council) Our Acting Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Davendra Rao had been appointed a couple of months ago to take charge of the Council in the interim until substantive appointment is made for a CEO. Then Ms. Mohini, of course, she is the one who is going to get the brunt of the questions from you, she is the Finance Manager and I am hoping she will have all the answers and explanations ready for you. In the end, if you need I can then talk about the Council’s future plans. Thank you. MR. N. CHANDRA.- Good morning everyone. I am Navin Chandra, Manager Finance representing the Ministry of Local Government and also I am actually assisted by my colleague, Alipate Mataivilia and he was a Senior Account Officer with the Ministry. MR. CHAIRMAN.- Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I would also like to acknowledge the OAG has joined us. Welcome to the team, I also believe this is the first time you are actually joining PAC as well so welcome to the Committee. What we will actually do, I believe that there was a certain set of questions that was actually sent over. What happens in PAC is each question is going to be asked by a Member and then will actually seek explanation from the submittees and then if there is any follow up question then the floor will be open for the Members to actually ask that. Once we actually done with the first question then we will go on to the second question. So, in all we will try to have this as an informal discussion as well whereby we can get to know what has been done with regards to the Council and what is the future plan as the Special Administrator has mentioned for Sigatoka Town Council because with PAC it is not just about the numbers nowadays because we are also looking as to how we can improve the system. We have seen that especially with the municipal councils, there has been a lot of issues which has been ongoing for a number of years, it is more than a decade now. It is very important for us to actually see how best we can improve the system rather than just criticising what has happening in the past. So, you might have seen some of the questions that are designed are not actually more so about the financials itself but more on the explanation of what actually is happening in the Council. So, we will go around the table and I will ask Honourable Vijendra Prakash to ask Question No. 1 and from there we will proceed. HON. V. PRAKASH.- Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Congratulation to the Special Administrator and the Acting CEO. Question 1: Why is the Council unable to meet the requirements of the Local Government Act? 3 |Verbatim Report Tuesday, 21st January, 2020 MS. M. NAIR.- Thank you, Sir. For Sigatoka, all the financial statements are prepared by 31st May and it is submitted to the Office of the Auditor-General on or before time. All our audits are done on time and it is already published in the Fiji Sun. Sigatoka is adhering to all the requirement under the Local Government Act. HON. V. PRAKASH.- Mr. Chair, supplementary question. If you are adhering then why has OAG pointed out that this account is not submitted on time and I think that is 31st March that the account should be submitted to OAG. MS. M. NAIR.- Sir, can I request OAG to answer that question? OAG REP.- Thank you, Honourable Member, for your question. The Report is as at 31st December, 2018, Sigatoka Town Council is actually the first Council that is able to submit by 31st December, 2018 on time, which is on 27th May, 2019. The 2018 Audit Report have already been signed by the OAG in November last year. So, they have managed to submit the 2018 accounts within the legislative deadline. MR. CHAIRMAN.- Well acknowledged about the 2017 Annual Report, the financial report was actually submitted on time. What about previous years? How has been the trend in previous years? We are seeing an improvement now and we actually expect this improvement to continue in the future. I believe these are the four, at least the ones we are actually looking at are the four Councils and we appreciate the fact that these four Councils are at least on 2017. There are certain municipal councils which are still on 2009/2010. So that is very well acknowledged that your submission is on time with the current year but how about the previous years? MS. M. NAIR.- Sir, from my knowledge, since we are here we are always on time. Maybe 1999/2000 we were far behind, but from 2004/2005 onwards we have been on time with Audit Department. MR. CHAIRMAN.- Thank you and that is also acknowledged as well. HON. J. N. NAND.- Thank you, Mr. Chair, Sir, through you I just like to point out that in the Accounting and Financial Management System there is an International Financial Reporting Standard for Small to Medium entities, is your organisation well versed on that? If so, can you please give us some success plan to it how are we are able to address that now and in future also? MS. M. NAIR.- Thank you, Sir. For Sigatoka, we are doing IFRS and we also have been doing some more training together because we are not experts. So, for Sigatoka all our accounts are prepared in IFRS. In addition, the Ministry is also assisting us to take up some more training. Currently we are doing things manually, we do make mistakes but with the assistance of the Ministry and changing of our accounts to MYOB, we will improve. HON. J.N. NAND.- Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. You have pointed out that you are making a bit of mistakes, what are these mistakes? Are they costly mistakes? MS. M. NAIR.- No, Sir, these are immaterial mistakes. HON. J.N. NAND.- Just give us a hint on what type of mistakes are they? 4 |Verbatim Report Tuesday, 21st January, 2020 MS. M. NAIR.- Sir, for example, sometimes a book entry, during calculating time the interest can go up and down in the book entries. In fact, when we do the balance sheet, the balance sheet does not throw that much. It is a immaterial ledger. HON. J.N. NAND.- Mr. Chair, through you does it affect our customers? MS. M. NAIR.- Definitely, no. MR. CHAIRMAN.- Thank you. Can the Ministry of Local Government elaborate on what are the plans of actually getting digital platforms to all the municipal councils, not just Sigatoka Town Council but all other municipal councils? MR.