{"id":523,"date":"2020-10-30T14:39:52","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T14:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/?p=523"},"modified":"2020-10-30T14:39:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T14:39:52","slug":"government-of-montserrats-use-of-capital-assets-vehicles-and-police-boats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/?p=523","title":{"rendered":"Government of Montserrat\u2019s Use of Capital Assets: Vehicles and Police Boats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Office of the Auditor General is pleased to\nannounce that its report entitled <strong>Government\nof Montserrat\u2019s Use of Capital Assets: Vehicles and Police Boats<\/strong> was presented to the Legislative Assembly on October\n27<sup>th<\/sup>, 2020.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Background: <\/strong>The Ministry of Finance &amp; Economic Management oversees\nthe assets across the public service.&nbsp; Each\nyear, Departments and Ministries provide their proposals and requests for\nspending, and these are evaluated and ranked against the Cabinet\u2019s Policy\nAgenda and other criteria.&nbsp;&nbsp; Funds are then\nallocated across Departments, programmes and projects according to their\nurgency and priority, subject to the total available budget for the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key\nFindings:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Good\ngovernance overall. &nbsp;<\/strong>There is adequate oversight of strategic\nplanning, budgeting, and capital assets. Actual spending is kept strictly in\nline with actual revenues. This contributes to SDP Goals #1 &amp; #4. <\/li><li><strong>Cash-based accounting and little\/no reporting of\ncapital assets<\/strong><strong>. &nbsp;<\/strong>We\nfound that Departments\u2019 records were incomplete for purchases, operating costs,\nand uses and outcomes of capital assets. &nbsp;Departments make no\nprovision for the depreciation and accumulated amortisation of capital assets. <\/li><li><strong>GOM\nhas no reserves\/insurance for most assets<em>.<\/em><\/strong>\nGOM\u2019s has no external insurance for most of its capital assets.<strong> &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/strong>There\nare no funds\/reserves to support the Government\u2019s policy of self-insuring. <\/li><li><strong>Over\n90% of vehicles are over 5 years old and inefficient<\/strong><strong>. <\/strong>The current fleet has vehicles dating as far back as\n30-plus years. &nbsp;The Montserrat Energy\nPolicy aims at 100% renewable energy by year 2030.&nbsp;&nbsp; However, all of the vehicles in the public\nservice still use fossil fuels, excepting one electric car (bought in 2019). <\/li><li><strong>Excellent\nmaintenance-schedule exists for vehicles, but it is under-funded<\/strong>. &nbsp;All\nof the Departments that we surveyed praised the diligence of the PWD\u2019s Plant\nHire and Mechanical Workshop in collecting public vehicles for regular service\nand maintenance.&nbsp;&nbsp; However, inadequate\nfunding for maintenance, parts, and timely replacement of vehicles increases\nthe cost of repairs and leads to frequent downtime.<\/li><li><strong>Poor co-operation by some Departments<\/strong>.&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThere was failure of the PWD\u2019s Plant Hire and Mechanical Workshop and\nthe Marine Unit to provide anything requested for this audit.&nbsp; <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key\nRecommendations:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Increase\nthe funding <\/strong><strong>for maintenance<\/strong><strong> to meet residents\u2019 needs and rising health\n&amp; safety standards. <\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Adopt accrual-based accounting and comprehensive\nreporting of capital assets<\/strong><strong>.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Steadily\ntransition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.<\/strong> <\/li><li><strong>Increase\nthe incentives for renewable energy and for electric vehicles<\/strong><strong>.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Fund\nself-insurance; develop funds for buying\/replacing capital assets.<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The full audit report highlights several other\nfindings and recommendations. &nbsp;&nbsp;Their implementation will bring significant\nimprovements in the funding of the Small Capital Asset Fund, timely maintenance\nof assets, and better service to the public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The report in its entirety can be found at the Montserrat Public Library<\/strong>, <strong>visiting\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/publications\/\">Publications<\/a>\u00a0or by requesting an electronic copy from the Office of the Auditor General, located upstairs Angelo\u2019s Complex, Brades. E-mail: <\/strong><a href=\"mailto:audit@gov.ms\"><strong>audit@gov.ms<\/strong><\/a><strong>; Telephone: (664) 491 &#8211; 3460 or 491 \u2013 4569.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Office of the Auditor General is pleased to announce that its report entitled Government of Montserrat\u2019s Use of Capital Assets: Vehicles and Police Boats was presented to the Legislative Assembly on October 27th, 2020.&nbsp; Background: The Ministry of Finance &amp; Economic Management oversees the assets across the public service.&nbsp; Each year, Departments and Ministries [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001003,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audit.gov.ms\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}