The NI Audit Office’s report to the Northern Ireland Assembly on financial reporting reveals “a culture of complacency and carelessness with hard earned tax-payers’ money”, Bill McKendry, spokesperson of the Northern Ireland Conservatives has said.
“The Auditor General has expressed concern about no fewer than six executive departments in his report”, Bill pointed out, “considering that his work didn’t even touch upon as major an area of government as health and social services that is extremely worrying. Indeed, more worrying still is the executive’s nonchalant reaction to the report. If the audit of a major public company attracted this many qualifications and uncovered systemic problems with reporting, you can be sure that its management and shareholders would not react so complacently.”
“This is public money, taken directly from the pockets of hard-pressed tax-payers, yet the executive is content to fritter it away willy-nilly. Too often the attitude seems to be, spend it now and worry about the proprieties later. Whether it’s another half a million on unapproved consultancy or chucking away £3 million patching up the DUP and Sinn Féin’s Maze vanity project, our government departments are leaking money at an alarming rate.”
“The Audit Office’s report uncovers at least £23.6 million which was casually overspent or unapproved by the Department of Finance. That’s before we even talk about the estimated £66.2 million overpaid through the benefits system, or over £60 million which the Department of Agriculture is still paying back to the European Union because of its maladministration of farm subsidies.”
“There needs to be a complete culture change at Stormont and throughout the executive departments. The politicians and senior civil servants have to rid themselves of their air of arrogance and entitlement, as well as their cavalier approach to taxpayers’ money. This is a time of austerity and the public demands that its cash is spent carefully and audited properly, to deliver excellent front-line services and to relieve the burden on hard working people. It’s ironic that while members of the executive quibble about the cost of a Corporation Tax cut which could deliver jobs and prosperity, they’re so careless with £150 million.”