Kamna Kumar 
The National Fire Authority couldn’t verify over $16 million in fixed assets in 2019 due to poor record-keeping and a lack of physical checks.
NFA Chief Executive Puamau Sowane told the Public Accounts Committee that the authority had repeated audit issues from 2016 to 2018, only starting to receive unqualified audit opinions from 2019 onward.
Sowane says among poor record keeping, the authority was also unable to confirm its inventory levels as the Auditor General was not invited during the stock take process.
“The modified opinion of the auditor said that due to the length of time that had lapsed from the financial year to commencement of the audit, he was unable to perform any physical variation to test the existence of property, plant and equipment.”
Sowane says it has also strengthened its record keeping by improving storage and document indexing.
The Committee Chair, Esrom Immanuel asked to explain the reason behind this.
“So what’s the reason for the Office of the Auditor General not being there to observe the stock take or the Board of Survey? Was there any reason or deliberate by the National Fire Authority Board?”
NFA’s Manager Finance, Sen Jeet responded that the issue stemmed from inexperience among former staff.
“During that period in time there were junior staff and in 2019 I was appointed as Manager of Finance so with my knowledge of auditing I had initiated that we should be getting Office of the Auditor General to authenticate our annual stock take and Board of Survey.”
According to Jeet an unqualified audit report for 2019 confirmed no major issues were found during that year’s stock take.
Audit reports for 2019, 2020, and 2021 have already been submitted, with the 2022 report expected next week.
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