Government Business Enterprises (GBEs) are yet to abide by recommendations made by the Auditor-General, who in the latest report highlighted serious financial flaws that have cost the tax-payer Rwf7.9 billion in wasteful expenditure.

The just submitted Auditor-General’s report to parliament, showed that at least 13 public institutions posted serious financial flaws after billions of tax payers’ money was lost in wasteful expenditure, fraud and unsupported documents.

Of Rwf7.9 billion recorded in gross mismanagement from different GBEs, Rwf3.2 billion was spent on expenditures with no supporting documents; Rwf1.7 billion partially supported expenditure; Rwf2.3 billion went to wasted expenditure; Rwf244 million was spent on unauthorised expenditure while up to Rwf400 million was spent on fraudulent activities.

While reporting on the fiscal performance of the year to June in 2017 before a joint session of parliament, Auditor-General Obadiah Biraro told legislators that unlike previous years, the number of institutions getting clean audit reports was declining while those with disclaimers were increasing significantly.

Not business as usual

“All these are issues resulting from failure to have structures for public finance management; and accounting and accountability structures. Our report is not business as usual, What is new is that parliamentarians are going to take actions on non-performers, seeing that only 50 per cent got a clean/unqualified audit report is bad enough, it requires concerted efforts,” said AG Biraro.

According to the Auditor-General, a total of 165 audit reports have been issued compared with 147 audit reports in the previous year and only 82 of them got unqualified audit reports — a number that has gone down from the previous audit report that gave more than 60 per cent of the audited reports a clean audit bill.

Public business enterprises like the Rwanda Energy Group and its subsidiaries; Water and Sanitation Corporation; Rwanda Social Security Board; Rwanda Transport Development Agency and other institutions like Rwanda Revenue Authority found in similar financial flows despite some having improved on public finance management.

Reacting to the issues raised by the Auditor-General’s report, legislators called for more comprehensive changes in public finance management, adoption of home-grown solutions for enterprises accused of rampant mismanagement among other solutions.

The report also showed that public institutions incurred wasteful expenditure of Rwf2.3 billion to mainly settle court fines and claims for damages; and to pay penalties, interest to fines for Rwanda Revenue Authority and Rwanda Social Security Board.