… laments inconsistencies and inadequate management of taxpayer’s money The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) says there is no positive change or improvement on the management of public funds for almost a decade. This is the observation of the PAC in its report tabled before the National Assembly by the committee's chairperson Selibe Mochoboroane on Friday on the opening of the seventh meeting of the first session of the tenth parliament of Lesotho. The report shows that the same issues raised by the Auditor General since 2008/09 keep recurring and that the office of the Auditor General has always been pointing out that there are always significant accounting errors and omissions as well as fundamental disagreements and uncertainties on the accounts that lead to qualification of the accounts since then. Again, the report shows that the qualification or basis for adverse opinion for the three years under review was brought by, among others, the supplementary estimates for these years were not submitted to parliament for approval. “Advances from the Contingencies Fund were directly and irregularly allocated to Heads of Expenditure. That expenditure remained unauthorised and advances not cleared as there was no Supplementary Appropriation Act for these years,” it highlighted. The report further says that omissions and misstatements of donor grants and external loans, omissions of dividends paid to the Government by some Parastatals and misstatements of foreign debt service figures and the omissions of bank balances from Central Bank of Lesotho, Nedbank, Standard Bank, ABSA (National Manpower Development Secretariat ) (NMDS), Foreign Missions and Sub-Accountancies; not all transactions and balances are recognised. It also shows that inconsistencies of data generated by Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) and the quality, accuracy, validity as well as completeness of information produced by the IFMIS remain doubtful as the cut-off date for the postings is not observed. “There were postings done after the financial statements had been send for audit,” the report says. The PAC also stated in its report that non-reconciliation and inadequate maintenance of bank accounts remain a serious challenge because the cash balances provided cannot be relied upon. It says reconciliation was not done on inflows and ouflows; thus rendering the accounts completely unreliable. The PAC is a sessional Committee of the Parliament of Lesotho which may be established under Standing Order N0.97 (5), which reads as thus, the committee shall consider the financial statements and accounts of all Government Ministries and Departments, Executive organs of state, courts, Authorities and Commissions established by the Constitution and of each one of the two Houses of Parliament; consider any audit reports issued on the financial statements, accounts or reports referred to the Committee by the House, the Speaker or these Standing Orders. The report of the PAC on the consolidated financial statements of the government of Lesotho covers for the three years 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 and other incidents findings. Lena