Acting Director of Audit Anslem Joseph has accused Accountant General Patricia Antoine of frustrating the work of his department.
He laid the charge during a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday.

Joseph was grilled for about two hours by Opposition Leader Tillman Thomas Chairman of the PAC, along with Parliamentary Representatives for St. George's North-East, Town of St. George and St. Andrew's South-East Nazim Burke, Peter David and Kenrick Fullerton respectively on the status of government spending over the years.

The Acting Director of Audit was answering questions from members of PAC based on the 1995 to 2002 reports. These reports were in most cases tabled in Parliament two to four years after the audited year.

Joseph pointed out that there are quite a number of problems facing his department and that the Account General is not making life easy for them in the performance of their duties.

He said that although recommendations were given as to cleaning up government account and putting it in order, there appears to be a lack of commitment from the accountant general in doing so.

The Director of Audit disclosed that it will be a difficult task to clean up government accounts and that it appears that it is not a major concern to the Account General.

Joseph pointed out that as it relates to the keeping of a proper Registry, the information in that Registry was not used to finalise the audit report because it has proven to be very unreliable. With regards to the public debt, the Director of Audit stated that his department has never conducted a comprehensive analyses because of the difficulty in obtaining information.

He said there are times when the general ledger is saying one thing and bank statements are saying another. The questioning session lasted for just under two hours and it covered a wide range of topics including Advance Payment, Reconciliation and Filing. A date is to be set for the next meeting and a decision has to be taken as to whom will appear for questioning.

There are reports that the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance Timothy Antoine as well as Patricia Antoine the Accountant General could be in the chair.