House Speaker, Halston Moultrie, yesterday lamented the fact that an auditor general’s report of a special investigation into the honoraria stipend within the Department of Education was not tabled in the House of Assembly in a timely fashion.
Its contents did however appear in the Tribune on Tuesday.
The report, which covers the period July 1, 2014 to February 28th, 2018, found that staff members had conspired to defraud the government of hundreds of thousands of dollars by manipulating stipends and honoraria codes.
As parliamentarians heard, the report was sent to the House of Assembly on September 13th, 2018.
Further, a House of Assembly receptionist received and signed for the report.
“The report never reached the acting clerk of the parliament and never reached the Speaker’s desk,” he said.
“However, by some circumstance, this report found its way to the Tribune newspaper.
“That is most unusual and most unacceptable,” he added.
The speaker assured that steps have already been taken steps to avoid any such delay in the future.
“We have spoken with the auditor general and agreed on a change in the protocol of how future reports will be handled,” he said.
“One issue that we have resolved is that whenever there is an audit report, we are requesting of the auditor general to supply this parliament with a minimum of 60 copies of that report.
“ This will ensure that all members of the House of Assembly and senators are able to receive their entitlement, which is an entitlement to every document tabled in this parliament,” said Mr. Moultrie.
