The Ministry of Education continues to abuse its main bank account by issuing advances to staff, despite warnings against this by the Auditor-General in previous years.

So said acting Auditor-General, Balraj Balram, whose report on the public accounts for 2002 was tabled in the National Assembly on November 24.

Balram said in his report that 507 advances totalling $54.5M remained uncleared from 1997 to 2001. And of the 507 advances, 61 of them were for 2002.

The report states that it was evident that an effective system was not in place to monitor the advances granted so that they can be cleared within a reasonable time. Also, in contravention to set rules governing the issuing of advances, officers were allowed to have more than one advance outstanding simultaneously.

The report states that the Accounting Officer was advised to investigate the outstanding advances with a view to having them cleared and to desist from issuing additional advances to officers who have outstanding advances.

Further, the report states, the practice is to record all advances issued as expenditure against the voted provisions of the ministry and when cleared to adjust the outstanding amounts in the relevant records. It says too that in the instances where these advances remain uncleared, the accounts were overstated by the respective amounts.

The laid-down principle is that advances be granted from an imprest bank account, according to the report. But because of the ministry's failure to account properly for the previous imprest granted to it by the Ministry of Finance in the early nineties, another was not allocated for the current period. Balram said that the advances were granted from the main bank account and therefore without authority and in contravention to the financial regulations.

The report states further that the cash book for the main bank account No. 3061 was kept open until January 17, 2003, in violation of Section 36 of the Financial Administration and Audit Act (FA&AA), which requires that all unspent balances as at December be surrendered to the Consolidated Fund. The report states that in this regard, 568 cheques valued at $726.1M were drawn to that date.

The Auditor-General found too that the ministry has not been timely with the payment of National Insurance Scheme (NIS) contributions and on 12 occasions payments were made on an average of two weeks later than required. As a result, as at December 31, 2002, the ministry was indebted to the NIS in the sum of $18.6M as penalties and related interest for the late payment of deductions.

Of this amount, $564,170 was paid in respect of 2003. The report states too that as at May 31, 2003, the ministry's liability had increased to $18.7M. It states: "Evidence was seen where an agreement was reached with the National Insurance Scheme to apportion the outstanding indebtedness between the ministry and the Teaching Service Commission in the respective percentages 55 and 45. However, it was discerned that the agreement did not have the consensus of the Teaching Service Commission."

At the time of reporting in July this year, three payment vouchers valued at $1.6M were not presented for audit examination, despite repeated request, Balram said. The report recommends that efforts be made to locate these vouchers and supporting documents and present them for examination.

The ministry did not maintain a record of the cheque orders in the format required by the circularised instructions, the report states. And in order to validate the current position of these financial instruments, an examination of several records that the ministry keeps had to be carried out. Balram said in his report that the failure to maintain records in the manner stipulated is to be admonished. It was also noted that the cheque order system was used for purposes other than for the payment of wages, salaries and travelling expenses without the approval of the Accountant-General.

It is a requirement for cheque orders to be cleared within 16 days of their issue through the submissions of bills and receipts, the report says.

But an examination of the registers revealed that cheque orders were being cleared on average of two and one-half months later. Additionally, at the time of reporting, 94 cheque orders valued at $9.2M were still to be cleared.