THE PARLIAMENT has misdirected criticism at the Auditor-General in the wake of his latest annual report documenting once again a catalogue of financial irregularities in the public service. And this has happened because the system of dealing with the report has changed.
Over the years the Auditor-General has been required simply to submit limited copies of his report to the Speaker of the House, the library of Parliament, and another to be tabled in the House. The formal tabling by way of a formal announcement at the start of a sitting makes the report available for public scrutiny.
The Speaker was required to certify the report and then the Clerk of the Parliament would send it to what was then the Government Printing Office which would reproduce enough copies for distribution.
It now emerges that in recent times the clerical facilities at Gordon House have been doing the reproduction because of lack of resources, since the privatised Printing Office had to be paid for the job. The bungling in the distribution of the latest report arose from these circumstances.
As we understand it a directive has now been sent to the Auditor-General shifting to his department the responsibility for producing the requisite amount of copies. It seems to us that the tone of the remonstration by the Prime Minister and other MPs in the House was ill-directed.
Indeed it smacked of "blaming the messenger" for the bad news of government mal-administration in so many areas.
We hope that the frequent declarations of commitment to transparency will not be undermined by this failure in parliamentary administration.
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