NEWS | Wednesday, 14 May 2008

PM to control expenditure by monitoring public offices

In his opening speech at a seminar held on public internal financial control (PIFC) yesterday, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi gave out details on how government plans to strengthen transparency by creating control mechanisms at public offices.
Addressing senior managers working within the public sector, Gonzi said: “In the government programme announced at the opening of parliament last Saturday, we referred to the introduction of new legislation, including the public administration act, the freedom of information act as well as the whistleblower’s act.”
He then proceeded to inform that the draft document on the public administration act highlights principles that are to be adopted throughout the public sector.
Adding that PIFC is based on three underlying principles, namely managerial accountability, internal auditing and the harmonisation of control practices in the public sector, he said: “Together, these three principles provide a basis to reach our aim for decentralisation, facilitated by a central monitoring body.”
Such a control environment is expected be bolstered by government through a number of new initiatives that will be taken in the coming months.
The PIFC concept is intended to provide a structured and operational model to assist the national government in re-engineering the internal control environment so as to ensure that public funds are safeguarded.
A statement outlining the PIFC concept released by the OPM yesterday read: “The environment created by a functioning public internal financial control framework provides an effective tool in the prevention of fraud and corruption.”
While the PM outlined that the PIFC framework has a track record of success in other countries, he recommended top management within the public sector to get thoroughly acquainted with the “state-of-the-art internal control environment” so as to assist government in its mandate.