Deciding who is in charge of the money

THE management of money is key to running the country.
Who is charged with devising the policies and programmes, and who is charged with handling the finances of the country, must be very clear.
In the grand scheme of government, politicians make the laws and the policies. That is why they are called politicians.
It is the civil servants who spend the money and deliver the services. That is why they are called civil servants.
This line between policy making and service delivery is getting blurred as politicians seek to take over both. And, this is putting a lot of stress upon the system.
It has become so that the National Budget seems to have lost traction or direction or both.
Monies allocated at the budget and locked in place by the passage of the National Budget Appropriation Bill is no longer sacrosanct.
You cannot transfer funds between votes without incurring a serious breach of the law once but, today, that appears no longer to be the case.
Today, one can transfer money between votes with ease. It happened last week, as a matter of fact, when the Government decided to transfer some of the money allocated for Connect PNG back to form part of the so-called disaster relief envelop of K500 million.
In those yester-years when money could be expected to remain in the one place, upon expiry of the year when accounts closed and the money had not been expended, the money automatically reverted to consolidated revenue to be reapplied in the next year’s budget.
Today, there are too many activities which are going on which has no bearing on the National Budget.
Ministerial commitments, for instance, or prime ministerial commitments for that matter, where do they come under the budget? Yet, these commitments are made at almost every outing that a minister or a prime minister attends at?
Amounts in the tens of millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions, are promised. Whether or not these amounts actually exchange hands, we do not know.
In some instances, cheques have been known to be printed on the spot amounting to tens of millions of kina on a whim and in directions that do not even have a mention in the budget.
Even cash in tens of thousands are distributed at a moment’s notice. Where does all that money come from? Are they private or public? Another point of concern in the distribution of money is warrant authorities.
Appropriations under the budget are untouched, and sometimes never, until and unless the Treasurer signs off on the warrant authority.
Many entities go past their project or procurement deadlines and many cannot meet their operational budgets by just waiting for warrant authorities to be released.
We have been told that at one stage, it was only the Treasurer who had to initial every warrant authority so that, if he was abroad or away from office, government operations had to be on hold until the Treasurer gets back.
Now that the Prime Minister is treasurer, the tight rein on the purse strings might have lessened and, then again, it might not have since the former treasurer, Ian Ling Stuckey, is still the minster assisting the Prime Minister on treasury matters.
Normally, heads of departments are section 32 officers and not their political heads, who are ministers. The Minister is responsible for:
(a) THE supervision of the finances of the State so as to ensure full accounting is made to Parliament on all transactions involving public monies;
(b) THE supervision of the finances of public bodies; and
(c) THE formulation of the National Budget and overseeing its implementation on behalf of the National Government.
It is the Minister who shall publish in the National Gazette a summarised statement of the receipts and expenditure of the Public Account during the fiscal year up to the end of each quarter.
And it is the Minister who shall, as soon as practicable after the end of each fiscal year, prepare and table a detailed statement of the receipts and expenditure of the Public Account during the fiscal year and send it to the Auditor-General. The Departmental Head, on the other hand, is directly responsible for financial management, control and direction of all matters relating to the management of the financial affairs of the State.
It is clear that the roles are clear under the law but they are getting blurred in the exercise of them.