PERMANENT Secretary, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Collin Croal, and Regional Executive Officer (REO) Region 10, Yolanda Hilliman on November 21 in the boardroom of the Region 10 Regional Democratic Council (RDC) led regional programme heads in a discussion on the findings of the 2011 Auditor General’s Report on the region. PS Croal explained that the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development has taken the policy of engaging regions individually on the report. He said that the ministry has since completed this discussion with 60 percent of the 10 administrative regions, in terms of meeting with the programme heads, and in some instances, the supervisors of specific programmes that were areas of focus in the report.
PS Croal said that the goal of these discussions is to not only to outline the findings, but to also assign responsibility as to who is required to respond to the charges.
He explained that those with the responsibility have a week to submit written responses to the ministry.
Among some of the issues discussed during the meeting were the region’s failure to recover overpayment paid on net salary in 2009, and overpayment to the tune of $2.8M made between 2008-2010 to contractors. (GINA)