Jeanette Calder, Executive Director at Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal
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Jeanette Calder, Executive Director at Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal [JAMP], is calling for the Financial Secretary to be given legal authority to punish permanent secretaries who fail to perform effectively.
This follows the findings in the 2023 Auditor General's report, which revealed that, as a result of non-compliance, the AG was unable to make an independent assessment of how more than $1.6 trillion allocated to ministries and agencies were utilised.
The Financial Administration and Audit Act requires the Permanent Secretary, who is the Accounting Officer, to prepare and submit to the Minister and the Auditor General the appropriation accounts four months after the fiscal year ends.
The Auditor General's report pointed to gaps in accountability where tax dollars were being spent after some ministries and public bodies were found to be non-compliant with the fiscal regulatory requirements.
The ministries which failed to prepare and submit appropriation accounts included Labour & Social Security, Education & Youth, Health & Wellness, as well as the Office of the Prime Minister.
In ascribing blame for what she terms a lack of appropriate oversight to the permanent secretaries, Ms. Calder, speaking Tuesday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines, was firm in her conviction that there must be suitable penalties.
Noting that permanent secretaries can "figure out downstream... who hasn't been performing," and "hold them to account," she raised concern that the Financial Secretary, on the other hand, "has nothing in law to hold the Permanent Secretary to account."
That, she asserted, "is a gap that the Parliament is aware of and they need to fix that gap in law, so we can hold our PSs to account."
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