By JASON SOM KAUT
THE ROLE of provincial treasurers is vital to the smooth operation of the government financial service delivery system said Minister for Health and Huon Gulf MP Sasa Zibe said during the opening of the 11th provincial treasurers conference at Buasi village Busamang last Sunday.
The minister said: “Apart from this, treasurers as custodians of public finances must maintain proper records of all receipts and expenditure and produce financial reports at regular intervals”.
The week long conference had brought together provincial treasurers, 89 district treasurers, officers from the Finance Department, Ombudsman Commission and other line agencies to debate and make decisions on major issues concerning management of finance and treasury matters.
Among the vital issues to be discussed was how to improve the capacity of district treasuries to ensure money was well spent.
Mr Zibe said: “If there are no proper systems of record keeping of income and expenditure, your role as custodians of public funds would be severely affected, because good record keeping is the basis of good governance, transparency and accountability.”
He said one of his major concerns as Health minister was, why the Auditor General keeps saying many Government organisations are not transparent in their actions.
“Many public hospitals in PNG had not submitted their audit reports for the past 10 years.
“Based on the AG’s report on the financial system, I am not sure whether this is a ‘systems problem’ or a ‘people’s problem’ that is, audits were not being done,” Zibe said.
He vowed to get to the root of the problem. “The real challenge for us all is to improve the monitoring and evaluation of the budget implementation processes with more emphasis on reporting or providing feedbacks.”
He suggested that all levels of Government “properly resource internal audit units so they can perform their roles more effectively”.
Mr Zibe also called for more partnership and co-operation between all stakeholders in particular agencies and Government.