Nikhil Aiyush Kumar 
Minister for Local Government and Housing, Maciu Nalumisa (right)
Legacy issues such as improper internal controls continue to plague the municipal council’s financial reports.
This was highlighted by Minister for Local Government and Housing Maciu Nalumisa in parliament.
Nalumisa says that most of the municipal councils have backlogs in the auditing of their financial reports.
He adds that simple internal control issues like bank reconciliation, the updating of variances between the general ledger and the subsidiary ledgers, VAT rate, salaries and other things were pertinent issues highlighted in the administration of any council for that matter.
The Local government minister states that they are working on addressing such crucial gaps through the recommendations provided by the Auditor General
“After looking at all these issues and challenges that are faced by most of these municipal councils, they’ve come up with some strategies. One is, and this is based on one of the recommendations that was proposed to us by the Office of the Auditor General, which is to have a monitoring system within the ministry to audit some of these municipalities’ reports.”
Nalumisa adds that this financial year, the ministry has hired officers who have accounting and auditing backgrounds to assist the ministry in monitoring the financial affairs of these respective councils.
He says that such issues should have been addressed about a decade ago.
Currently, the minister stated that only the Rakiraki council is up to date with its auditing of financial statements.
