Soab: insufficient attention for annual report

August 05, 2008 12:52 PM

Local administrators and supervisors of governments have insufficient attention for annual accounts and the audit of these, established government accountants’ bureau Soab in her 2007 annual report.

Soab mentions the current backlog regarding the annual accounts. Soab attaches a lot of importance to annual accounts as audit-instrument. ”In fact, by means of an annual account, an administrator gives account about the pursued policy and management of the entrusted financial means. Each administrator that is assigned duties and competences by a higher body must feel the necessity of giving account and feel accountable.”

In connection to this Soab is of the opinion that also parliament and the Island Council as supervisors of the government cannot perform effective supervision if an audited annual account is not submitted on time. In practice, there are indeed administrators that attach importance to annual accounts, but until now, there was most of the time an ad-hoc policy, and a structural approach is lacking.

Soab says that it understands that the current governments give priority to the political reformation and solving the financial and liquidity problems, but Soab is also convinced that the current financial problems are caused by among others, the lack of a reliable financial administration.
Soab had assumed that the governmental organizations would be constructed in such way that approval of the annual account in question would be possible within the near future, in the nineties already.

A well set up budget cycle that functions adequately, and a biased and independent audit of the financial management, directors and heads of service and the timely accountability is still a big necessity. Especially the island territories of St. Maarten and Curacao have taken their own initiative to start auditing their annual accounts. Soab has audited the 2001 annual account of Curacao but didn’t provide it with an approved audit certificate. The audit of the 2002 up till 2004 inclusive will be rounded off in 2008.

A project was started in St.Maarten to come to an audit certificate. But this initiative stagnated due to the political structure. Soab continues emphasizing the importance of making up the arrears. Controlled information and justification can support the transition process to new entities.

(Source: National Newspaper Amigoe)

August 2, 2008