Topic: auditor general

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, in a hearing on Wednesday, 22 Sept., has queried why government has not implemented a host of recommendations made by several of its reports.

Some senior government officials are failing to consistently disclose details of publicly funded travel expenses, despite a policy requiring them to do so.

Government needs to introduce new performance measures and move to an outcome-based budgeting system to improve transparency.

The Public Accounts Committee will resume its hearing Wednesday as its inquires into the operations of OfReg and the findings of the Auditor General’s audit into the local utilities regulator.

In its first-ever audit of Cayman’s education system, the Office of the Auditor General describes a Ministry of Education that lacks a clear direction of where it is going. 

Teaching customs and border patrol agents to recognise red flags and suspicious behaviours will allow them to better target would-be lawbreakers while reducing friction for everyday travellers. It is an efficient, customer-friendly use of resources.

The Central Planning Authority, in particular, wields considerable power and influence. Appropriately, it has taken meaningful steps toward transparency in recent years, but as an Auditor General’s report released early this year also noted, the work is far from over.

A review of minutes from CINICO Board of Directors’ meetings in 2018 reveals two “categories” of record-taking: The first verbosely recounting board discussions and reports from then-CEO Lonny Tibbetts; the second, offering terse (even cryptic) summaries of the board’s actions during a handful of extraordinary meetings last fall leading to Mr. Tibbetts’ termination.

In her recently released report on the unfinished Owen Roberts International Airport project, Auditor General Sue Winspear stated that there were 60 design errors and omissions made in the redevelopment’s plans.

My job is interesting because of the shades of gray and need for judgment and interpretation of what I find during audit, and I would be bored to tears if “the world were orderly and neat.”

As written and approved, but never enforced, the law requires elected politicians, senior government workers and government-appointed board members to disclose publicly their personal interests as a means of identifying potential conflicts.

The Office of the Auditor General released a report on public corruption Friday, calling for government to enact a long-dormant law designed to prevent conflicts of interests in government.

Three years should have been ample time for the Cayman Islands government to fix the country’s broken social welfare system … or at least get started.

The Cayman Islands civil service employed more staff at the end of 2017 than it did in 2008-2009 at the start of public sector austerity measures enacted just after the global financial crisis, an auditor general’s office report has revealed.

The Cayman Islands government spent nearly $35 million during a five-year period on consultants to support a range of public projects, spending which was largely not monitored and which, in many instances, was done without a business case plan.

Audited financial statements for the Cayman Islands Ministry of Education have not been completed for public review since the government’s 2012/13 budget year, more than four years ago, according to Auditor General Sue Winspear and Financial Secretary Ken Jefferson.

The Cayman Islands government spends about 68 percent of its annual budget on employee payroll, according to estimates compiled this week by the auditor general’s office.

Despite improvements being made over the last several years, government still does not properly plan or budget its major capital projects, which could mean that the costs of those developments could be underestimated by a “significant” amount, according to a report released last week by the Office of the Auditor General.

Recommendations that the Cayman Islands public hospital system implement an anti-fraud policy have not been fully followed several years after the investigation into the CarePay hospital swipe-card system.

Welfare programs should be integrated in a “one stop shop” to provide swifter access to assistance to those in need and better value for money to government, according to an outline business case for reform of the beleaguered system.

Today's editorial cartoon

Auditors do not win popularity contests. And yet, we must confess we are inordinately fond of auditors and, in particular, Auditors General such as Ms. Winspear, who do, if not God’s work, certainly ours, meaning the people of the Cayman Islands.

Senior Cayman Islands government managers ignored or actively opposed the majority of the recommendations made in a controversial 2015 audit that revealed opaqueness, “unlawful” acts and allegations of corruption in the management of public properties.

A number of mismanagement problems in local government boards appointed to oversee aviation-related matters went unaddressed for years after a December 2013 audit revealed some embarrassing practices at those entities.

For the second consecutive year, the Cayman Islands government’s attempt to complete an audit of public sector finances has received a failing grade from the auditor general’s office.

Auditor General Sue Winspear, who succeeded former Auditor General Alastair Swarbrick in July 2016, has picked up right where her predecessor left off — providing evidence that the Cayman Islands government is simply incapable of running large enterprises.

The Cayman Islands government has neither the resources, nor the information available to properly manage an increasingly complex “hybrid” healthcare system for its resident population, Auditor General Sue Winspear concluded in a report made public Friday.

A botched 2013 contract to clean up scrap metal at the George Town Landfill focused too much on price instead of the ability to do the job, according to a new report from the Office of the Auditor General.

Eight years after former Auditor General Dan Duguay sounded the alarm over $1.5 billion in unaudited government finances, a number of government agencies failed to submit “quality” financial statements, according to Cayman’s current auditor general.

Following a highly critical report from the Office of the Auditor General last year and more criticism this year from some members of the Legislative Assembly, government plans to overhaul the system of benefits and healthcare for seamen and veterans and medical care for indigents.

From the Cayman Islands to the United Kingdom, we extend a hearty congratulations to new U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May.

Sue Winspear took over as Cayman’s new auditor general on Friday, succeeding former Auditor General Alastair Swarbrick, who held the post between July 2010 and October 2015.

The Needs Assessment Unit, tasked with managing a number of social assistance programs, needs a “major overhaul,” according to the legislature’s Public Accounts Committee.

An accountant with long experience in U.K. local council government has been selected as Cayman’s new auditor general, the Cayman Islands government announced on its Twitter feed Monday.

It comes as welcome news that Cayman Islands Governor Helen Kilpatrick has decided to extend her time in office another year, until September 2017.

Central Planning Authority Chairman A. L. Thompson, responding to criticisms from a 2015 auditor general’s report on land use planning, said he would not oppose opening planning meetings to the public and even televising the proceedings.

Cayman Islands Governor Helen Kilpatrick has backed the prompt release of independent government audits once those are completed, following recent public comments that the process surrounding the release and evaluation of reports from the auditor general’s office may be changed.

The Cayman Islands Government recently approved a subtle change in the territory’s finance law that will leave the door open for “abuse and corruption at the very highest levels,” representatives of the Auditor General’s Office said last week.

The last meeting of the Anti-Corruption Commission was on Feb. 13, 2015, a year ago Saturday.

More than a year after the two private members left their posts on the Anti-Corruption Commission, the governor has named Norman Bodden of Bodden & Bodden Attorneys at Law and Bodden Corporate Services to the commission.