Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem says The Fiji Times front page article published on December 10 “was not only misleading but designed specifically to attack the FEO’s credibility”.
He was referring to a report titled “Below par” which said the Fijian Elections Office submitted three draft versions of its 2018 financial report, but all were found to be “not of acceptable quality” – by the Office of the Auditor-General.
In a news conference yesterday, Mr Saneem attacked this newspaper and called on the Auditor-General to explain why he had not corrected The Fiji Times report which was based on information derived from the Auditor-General’s 2019-2020 Audit Report on Statutory Authorities, Independent Body and Commissions.
He said he had asked the Auditor-General to clarify the matter with The Fiji Times because the report was misquoted.
Mr Saneem said the Auditor-General should explain why his office handled the audit process with “such a level of incompetence”.
“Can The Fiji Times confirm if the Auditor-General wrote to them to clarify the dates for the report?” he asked.
The Fiji Times noted it had made an error on the dates of the reports and this was rectified with a correction on page two of last Saturday’s edition.
Mr Saneem said the final signed audit opinion of the Auditor-General’s report was opposite to what was reported on The Fiji Times front page. During the news conference, he read out the Auditor-General’s opinion on the final signed audit opinion, which said the accompanying financial statements presented fairly, in all material respects, FEO’s financial position as at July 31, 2018.
Mr Saneem said the financial statement was prepared by KPMG, one of the top four accounting firms in the world.
The report, tabled in Parliament, said the FEO had engaged a chartered accounting firm for the preparation of its annual statutory accounts despite having a financial controller.
The report said despite that, the FEO submitted three versions of the draft 2018 accounts for audit in response to the errors noted in the financial statement.
The OAG stated that the draft accounts initially submitted for audit were not of acceptable quality. Mr Saneem said in 2006 and prior, the Office of the Supervisor of Elections’ accounts were maintained by the accounts team at the Office of the Prime Minister.
“This meant that all payments and processing were handled by the OPM. However, in 2014, the Electoral Act granted complete independence to the SoE as head of FEO to manage all FEO accounts.”
The OAG issued a statement yesterday where it said the recent Auditor-General’s reports to Parliament “has been referred by the Honourable Speaker to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, OAG will not be issuing any statements on them.”
The Fiji Times editor Fred Wesley said if the FEO had issues with the OAG reports, they should raise the issue with the Auditor-General.
“The facts remain as we reported them — the Auditor-General found the draft financial reports submitted for audit in 2018 were of unacceptable quality. If the FEO has an issue with this it can take it up with the Auditor General. It is not The Fiji Times responsibility to seek a clarification on behalf of the SOE from the OAG on a report that has been presented in Parliament. We were simply the messenger and the SOE should know that shooting the messenger doesn’t help anyone, even his office.”
