Audit: Correctional Services problems due to weakness

 IT is easy to see why Papua New Guinea’s Correctional Institutions Services has variously been referred to as operating an “open door” policy, as “being porous” and having become a “training ground for serious criminals”.

Part of the reason for the constant jail breaks that elicit these cutting remarks is derived from the findings of the Auditor-General into the department’s books.

It found that: “The number and magnitude of control weaknesses identified in the course of the audit are significant and serious.”

The audit for 2010 concludes: “At present the control activities such as delegations, authorisations, reconciliations, segregation of duties, system access, and management oversight are not sufficiently robust to detect or correct errors or fraud.”

These findings were brought to the attention of Commissioner in a management letter but there had been no response at the time the report went to printing.

Comparison of warrant authority and actual expenditure showed the CIS had incurred over-expenditure for that year of K3.654 million in three expenditure vote items. 

And a total of K238,830 was transferred out of the recurrent budget and paid to the Correctional Services Trust Account when the Public Finances Management Act specifically prohibits such transfers.

The cash book balance showed K10.373 million while the actual bank balance was nil. 

Credits in the bank statement totaling K7.378 million representing reimbursements from the Finance Department for December 2010 were not recorded in the cash book as required.

Payments were made from the 2010 recurrent budget to service providers from 2007 to 2009.

Advances continued to be made to officers even though previous advances remained outstanding. 

A total of 279 advances totaling K279,091 remained unacquitted at year’s end.

These and other discrepancies noted in the audit has led to a serious deterioration of the institutions’ ability to attend to its functions in a fit and proper manner.