‘It’s Frustrating and Inexcusable’—Senator Slams Audit Gap

“It’s frustrating and inexcusable—10 years behind,” said Kevin Herrera, as the 2026 budget debate concludes and moves toward implementation without audited public accounts for more than a decade.

Herrera’s remarks come as the Government advances into the 2026/27 fiscal year, following parliamentary approval of the national budget in the absence of up-to-date audited financial statements detailing revenues and expenditures.

Under the Finance and Audit (Reform) Act, audited accounts are to be prepared within specified timelines and laid before the National Assembly. These reports are intended to verify the accuracy of public financial management and provide a factual basis for parliamentary scrutiny.

Publicly available audit reports, however, remain significantly outdated. The most recent comprehensive audit findings trace back to the 2014/2015 Auditor General’s report, which identified substantial deficiencies, including more than $222 million in revenue arrears across departments such as General Sales Tax, Income Tax, Forestry, and Transport.

The absence of updated audits means that Parliament has debated and approved the national budget without a verified account of prior fiscal performance. Budget deliberations, which are designed to assess past spending outcomes and inform future allocations, proceeded without confirmed data on how public funds were managed in recent years.

This gap limits the ability of legislators to evaluate efficiency, detect irregularities, and assess alignment between spending and policy objectives. The Auditor General’s mandate includes identifying issues such as unaccounted public funds, weak financial controls, ineffective enforcement of financial laws, and unauthorized expenditures—areas that remain largely unexamined in the absence of current reports.

The lack of audited accounts raises broader concerns about fiscal governance. Without timely audits, a key accountability mechanism is diminished, reducing transparency and weakening institutional oversight within the public finance system.

Although oversight structures such as the Joint Public Accounts Committee have been established, the continued delay in audit reporting indicates that constraints affecting the audit process remain unresolved.

With the budget now transitioning from debate to execution for the 2026/27 fiscal year, the absence of updated audited accounts continues to shape the context in which public financial decisions are made, raising questions about the strength of accountability mechanisms supporting the process.