NATIONAL PARLIAMENT OF SOLOMON ISLANDS

 

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE TRANSCRIPT

(Inquiry into the Central Payroll Division, Ministry of Finance and Treasury)

 

25 May 2007

 

(Uncorrected Version – subject to changes upon revision)

 

 

Opening prayers were said by Honourable Fono, Leader of the Opposition and a member of the Public Accounts Committee.

 

Chairman:  Thank you Leader, and before we continue on today’s  hearing I would like to acknowledge and pay tribute to the officer who was instrumental in producing this special audit report on the subject of today’s hearing.

            You would all have been well aware of this officer who was our colleague and friend, the Late Tony Kiva.  Tony died tragically unexpectedly on 22nd April of a severe medical condition.  Tony joined the Auditor General’s Office in October 2005 and contributed to the work and effectiveness of both the Audit Office and this Committee of Parliament.  Tony made major contributions to reports of the Committee including report on the 2005 Supplementary Estimates November 2005, Report on the 2006 Estimates November 2005, Report on the 2006 supplementary Estimates October 2006, Report on the 1997 National Accounts on Solomon Islands Government October 2006, Report on the Ministry of Health and Medical Services on the National Referral Hospital January 2007 and Report on the 2007 Estimates January 2007.

            All of us would agree that late Tony Kiva will be remembered for his important work for the government and for the people of Solomon Islands.  And on behalf of this Committee I would like to formally acknowledge Tony’s contribution and hard work and express a condolence to his colleagues and his wife, Anita.  Let us remain for a few moments in silence.

 

(Few moments silence in respect of Late Tony Kiva)

 

  Thank you.

            And as the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I would like to welcome and thank the Permanent Secretary and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance for appearing before the Committee.

            The Public Accounts Committee’s function is to review and examine public expenditure as part of this important oversight function of Parliament.  The Auditor General has tabled eight reports in relation to expenditure in that particular government department.

            Today, we will be enquiring into this special audit report into the Treasury Division, Central Payroll and the forty-eight (48) recommendations contained in the report.  As I have said, this report is to examine public expenditure.  We are not going to point fingers.  This is just to guide and direct the effectiveness of the Ministry in the best interest of the people of Solomon Islands.  And before the Committee starts its questioning I would like to invite the Permanent Secretary to make an official statement to the Committee.  Thank you. 

 

Permanent Secretary:  Thank you Chairman and the Committee.  We also share the same tribute to late Tony that he has done a great job for this country.

            May I introduce to the Committee my team who have been instrumental and a hard working team for quite some time in the Ministry of Finance and Treasury.   To my left is Denty Tuke.  He is the Assistant Accountant General – Payroll, Revenue and Imprest.  He looks after payroll, revenue and imprest.  Next to him is Mr Lyle Patovaki.  He is the Chief Payroll Officer.  Jenny Koe is the Accountant Payroll specializing for Established and Police.  Those are two big payrolls. Then next to her is Jerold.  He is the Accountant Payroll looking after Teachers.  Teachers, is another big one, and with all other education authorities in teachers, the complication in dealing with teachers is big.  But Jerold is a young, energetic officer who joined us a few years ago so we are training him for future leader of the payroll section.  And Jack is looking after Non Established Payroll and Pension.  Again that is another group and also workers compensation and all these things also come under Jack.  And at the back is Brian who is our RAMSI Financial Strengthening Programme Adviser who just joined us, I think three weeks ago to continue on with those jobs that have been left especially on writing policies and manual.  So that is the group that we have in the Payroll.  There is one who is on leave.  She looks after deduction.  Her name is Pricilla.  She looks after deductions for NPF, SIPEU, all these Unions and salary deductions.  She is not with us.  But this is the team that deals with more than 10,000 officers and if we don’t make their pay then that is a big problem.  These officers have been working so hard both for the eight hours or they work extra hours just so that we make the payroll run at the due date time.  So that is more of a introduction from my team.

            Let us go straight to the Special Audit Report especially on the Central Payroll.  I would say that this is a very good programme of processes that we are now embarking on or this government is working on to enable both the officers and the ministries and the public to be aware of what is there on the processes, the regulations and the work that is involved.  We really welcomed the audit report and we really do appreciate the recommendations that are being found there, and I am sure this is a stepping stone for good governance process within government.  As I have said the Payroll Section is one of the most demanding sections in Ministry of Finance.  In fact there are people waiting there for their cheques now.  So will go through this and after this will go down and meet them again.  Also what I would like to point out here is that to become a payroll officer you have to be the most patient person in the system in order to meet people.  When you are talking about pay you are talking about the livelihood of an employee, and dealing with human is different from dealing with money.

            Anyway the report has been done and we have taken some actions and I think it has been tabled already in your file the responses the Ministry has outlined with an action plan on how the Ministry or the Central Payroll will deal with those recommendations and how we will take it forward from there.  I will also say thanks to the advisers who have been with us last year, Darrel Martini and Diana who have been working with us to come up with this.  As I have said a lot of our staff have been very much active on customer service that trying to go back and do things take a lot of time and this is a very laborious job.  And just to give you an example; to get one cheque raised might take four hours, just one cheque, and you are talking about 8,000 people and if one query comes in that takes a lot of time to do that.  But those are the kinds of laborious jobs we took.  The earliest is four hours.  It can go for one day, two days or even a week or more than that.  But at the end of the day the customers or employees do get their cheques. 

            Also I would like to say here that a lot of the things that are noted from the recommendations are not really in our control so that is why I’m glad to see my colleague from Public Service who is here who can also share on how those things can be addressed that affect the Public Service Department and also other individual ministries.  But what I would like to point out here is that we are so happy that we will go through the action plan that has already been tabled in front of you and will take it further from there.  We have a first action plan which is attached to the response that we have given to the audit office and since then we have dealt with a lot of these recommendations one way or the other in our normal work programme and that is the way it should be.  As we improve on those recommendations those become part of the system or the culture of improving working practice in the Ministry.

            I would also like to say that as we started that off, it might be slow but it put a foundation of the good working practice in the Ministry.  I won’t go in detail on the work plan but I will wait for your questions and will go through together.  Apart from that we have also made another, and I would like to table this other action plan that we have done which we are working on to try and address this audit report.  Just recently as you know when the tsunami came we sort of diverted from where we are going from the previous action plan and this action plan so we are a bit slow on going forward.  And also the adviser who has been helping us has left but now we got another new adviser with us to take us further especially on the policy and the writing of manuals, especially the writer for all these recommendations.

            So I would say that we are so happy and I have got a good team here who has been working their time.  Sometimes they slept at 3 o’clock when they get back home just to get the payroll run and get it done.  There are times when we do not meet the deadlines but at the end of the day you still get paid.  They will answer specific questions they deal with.  I will let them talk.  You will hear from the horses’ mouths rather than I am giving you something that is not true.  You will hear from them what are some of the problems or the programmes, and the progress that we have done since this audit report and recommendations will come through.  Thank you.

 

Chairman:  Thank you PS and officials. Before we continue with our deliberation may I give the PS for Public Service for his submission.  He has something to say for the sake of the Committee so will allow him to speak.

 

PS/Public Service:   Chairman, members of the committee, colleagues and … thank you for being part of this …….. and I would like to say yes, thank you for this report.  It does indicate that there are some areas that we need to pull our socks to make sure what our purposes are in the Public Service.  And that is to deliver effective and efficient Public Service to our people.  In that case I would like to say thank you for this report.

            Yes, the report made mention on some of the areas that Public Service has a role to play and I would like to say that with this programme that we are putting in place, I think some of those areas need to be taken care of.  There are more to be done and there are programmes for instance, I think our opportunity would be with the Public Service Improvement Programme that is now being attended in Canberra and my colleague and myself will be there very soon to identify who will be running the programme.  This is a programme that will run for five to ten years and I think that is the most opportunity that we will be depending on to address some of the issues that are raised in the report.  At this juncture I would like to sincerely thank you.  We will go through the report and the recommendations and then explain as to what has been done.  Thank you very much.

 

Chairman:  Thank you PS and officials.  On behalf of the Committee I wish to thank you for formulating a comprehensive action plan that we will deliberate today, so thank you so much.

            I will now without wasting any more time I would like us to go through each page.  Will start from page one on recommendations 1, 2, 3 and 4, any comments?

 

PS/Finance:  Do you want us to respond on that?

 

Hon Fono:  Chairman, maybe you should update us on the process and the position we are at now on those recommendations.

 

PS/Finance:   Recommendation 1 Policies and Procedures.  Up to now the former adviser has started working on it already.  He left and it is still there but now we have an adviser who is with us now and we will take that further and hopefully by the end of this year will have the policies done.

            On recommendation 2 it is an ongoing work that has been done.  What I am saying here is the system has been put in place that makes all the salaries, cheques, and all these, and I can say that they are very strict on that.  That is ongoing and it goes to all the salaries.

 

Hon Fono:  Chairman, on that recommendation some of the experiences line ministries would find is the actual appointment by the Public Service Commission.  Can the PS/Public Service respond to what are some of the reasons why it takes so long for letters to be processed?  Because sometimes we have to be considerate in here when the officer has been asked to do a job and sometimes he has been on the job for a number of weeks and in humanly speaking he is going to suffer if there is no pay.  It is the letter from the Public Service that is delayed.  That is why sometimes line ministries have to pressurize you to raise casual payments because of human considerations.  So the delay from the Public Services needs to be improved and the process in Public Service so that payments are made for their appointment letters to go through you then you process their pays.  Is the Public Service trying to improve that system?  

 

PS/Public Service:  Chairman, we are as part of our improvement programme, we are trying to improve on these systems on where are the hold ups and all those sorts of things.  But before I think I need to explain as to where are the authorities of appointment into the Public Service?  There are several of them. Chairman.  One is under the Solomon Islands Constitution, His Excellency the Governor General under Section 1164 has the authority to select without consulting Public Service where officers you would like to have within the Public Service.  Another one is the Public Service Act.  This is the normal recruitment process that all public service officers come under.  The other one is the Parliamentary Entitlement Regulations where the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister selects without coming to the Public Service Commission their staff can use that one.  The other one is the political appointees in the Prime Minister’s Office.  The other one is the Commissioner of Police in the Police Act, the other one is the Comptroller of Prisons under the Prison Act.  The other one is the employment contract signed by the government and some of the people they would like to have within the government system.  The final one is the Memorandum of Understanding by departments and donors.  So these are several of the areas where people are appointed into the Public Service and somehow were included in the payroll.

            Okay, why have they not been processed is a statement by the Leader of the Opposition.  Some of these under the Public Service Commission Regulations you will have to have a police clearance and a medical report.  Most of these appointments do not have those requirements met and so there were delays by the Public Service Commission.  They cannot appoint people without satisfying those requirements. That is you got to be a healthy person to work in the Public Service otherwise Public Service Commission may appoint somebody who is sick and work one or two weeks and they die and then the government pays the cost of  the coffin of the dead person.  The other one is that you got to have a clear record otherwise we will be …. people of criminal nature within the Public Service which is now the intention of having a Public Service.  So those are some of the problems that is why there were delays in making their payments in process.  Some appointments do not meet those requirements yet were in the payroll. I do not know how that system works as far as Public Service is concern.  Appointments have to be made by Public Service Commission before  names are being sent to the payroll and then salary is paid.  I do not think I have answered your question or not but I think those are the authorities of appointments and those are the problems that we encounter in terms of delays in the appointments.  Thank you.

 

Chairman:    Thank you PS.  The idea of formulating compliance to check list could be one of the important activities to remedy the problem.  In terms of transparency and accountability could the Committee have a copy of the check list?

 

PS/Finance:  Yes, check list can be made available after the meeting to the secretary.

 

Chairman:  And in terms of formulating these procedure manuals depend a scoping document.  How far is the scoping document?

 

PS/Finance:  We just have the adviser with us to continue on with what we have started off.  It is just a frame of all these so you need a good person to sit down and write it.  The cash officers are more of frontline so we have Brian with us now.  As I have said we are working towards having that this year because that will help a lot for both Finance and all other Ministries.  Just to make mention that the trend that Ministry of Finance is going now is with all the advisers coming in they will write down or put in paper all the procedures, regulations or manuals that can be used for future reference to what we are doing.  So that is what we are working on.  And as we go along with those recommendations we will touch on some other things that we are working on.

 

Hon Fono:  That is a very good point otherwise when the adviser leaves we are back to square one because there are no manuals that local counterparts can go on after.  So that is a very good point that needs to be done not only Finance but every other Ministry that has RAMSI advisers attached to them.  I hope other Ministries or Permanent Secretaries are doing the same thing because that has been all along our problem.  When we have advisers work is very good and when they leave we are back to square one so we are not addressing the problem so that is the way forward in terms of what the PS is talking about.  We should have these manuals prepared by their advisers and have counterparts identified to do training.  So those are good points Chairman.

 

Chairman:  We shall move on to page 2 recommendations 5 and 6.

 

PS/Finance:  Recommendations 5 and 6 Treasury to take steps to ensure … exist.  Again if you come to Treasury you will see our building has just been demolished.  We have physical problem on records but despite that the current year records we are putting them where we can work on those things.  Ministries must make their personal files up to date and what not so that all the information of those personal files are done in the Ministries.  Treasury used to have personal files and will work on that much, much later as we have more office space.  So that is how we do that.  But again as I have said there are possible things that we can do is to electronically file those correspondence and when you search for it, it is easy for you to search but those are ways down the track.

            Recommendation 6 - ……..importing new employees.  Treasury agrees that the recommendations ……………….  They are doing that now and you can by addressing that with the manual that we are working on that should form part of recommendation 6.  That is how we will implement that.

            Recommendation 7.  We are working on that now.  The list can finally be processed now.  We had some problem with the I.T. previously especially on listing.  Now we can provide proof listing to be checked with what is in the Ministry and what is on the payroll.  On 7(b) we will be working on that to verify the amount.  I do not think we really looked into the detail but we will work on that.

            Recommendation 8.  There is an adviser who is now looking at the I.T. making recommendations on the Tele-pay, SMI and all these.  I do not want to raise the alarm at this time but that system is old now.  If we do not replace it quickly and have no plan for it we will be coming back to manual sometimes.  But Ministry of Finance is already proactive on this.  We have a report there that we are working on the replacement of the financial accounting system. We put a short term recommendation on medium and long term.  To replace the Tele-pay will take you five years, so we take note of that and work is underway on that.  The physical risk is the tsunami because Ministry of Finance is near the sea so that is another physical risk that we have to look at.  What I’m saying is we are now looking at the fallback situation if the payroll system drops and what we will do.  That is the fallback.  The other one was the requisition of getting the current system to a system that will work to get us going and the long term, the five year one is to replace the current system on Tele-pay.

 

Hon Fono:  So have you identified the alternative system?

 

PS/Finance:  Yes, we are working on that.  We are meeting on Thursday next week to see those recommendations.  The fallback when everything goes to worse is manual system.  That is the fallback.  That is where we do not want to go.  As I said I do not want to raise an alarm.  I am just pointing that out that we are working to make payroll keep working even whatever happens so that is in place.   As I have said, these officers have been working and they have the experience of working right through the night to make that payroll happen.  So that is recommendation eight.

            Recommendation 9.  Treasury ……  We looked to our Public Service, again on the review of the Tele-pay or the payroll system.  We will work together with the Public Service to get HR right and accounts together so that we do not replicate and we do not do two systems but we work together so that is why I said it is a five year programme, and the programmes are coming to make that happen.  That should address recommendation 9.

 

 

Chairman:  When you referred to recommendation 9 to PSD.  Have these message been translated to PSD?

 

PS/Finance:  Chairman, we are working on it and as my colleague is saying, next week or so there is a Public Service Improvement Programme and the Selection Panel is moving towards that.  These are not simple programmes.  We take note of this and we are working on that.

             Recommendation 10.  Yes, that is going on.  The checks are done much, much better than previously and again it is a good reporting system or it is good that both Ministries and the Ministry of Finance work together to check those check and balance within the system.

            On Recommendation 11 ………asking for signatories.  Less than half responded.  That is a message to the Ministries.  However, this is considered low risk because of payroll officers have close working relationships with Chief Administrative Officers and know their appropriate signatures.  But yes, we do try to make that happen.

            Recommendation 12 – Payroll officers currently check all data included and enter the data in the system and the Chief Accountant will request that as the relevant section on the authority form.  I would also like to say here that the current payroll system we have to go extra mile to really get what.  The reports are coming out but not in the form that you can really understand so we really need to change the system.  Well we addressing all these but it takes more than your time to get those information but despite that I think the officers have been very well in making that happen.  If you go in you will see how it actually works.  It is an art.

            Again I have mentioned Tele–pay already.  Recommendation 13 ……agree with the recommendation and again it is addressed in Recommendation 10 and 12.

            Recommendation 14.  As you  have said when we are very strict on those changes there are some officers who are affected by this and they got very mad with our officers in Treasury but I would like to point out here again that if the documents are not properly done we do not process them.  The source comes from the Ministries and they need to do it right because when they don’t do it right and we run the payroll then Friday is the worst day for us because those that are not in the payroll yesterday will be in the office now for casual payment.  So again it relies with the Ministry to do those documentations right, and I’m glad that PAC is saying “do it right”, so all other Ministries should be doing it right.

            Recommendation 15.  This is something that we need to really work on, the newly appointed SIG Establishment on the link between the establishment and their appointments on the payroll. We will work on that with Public Service.  I would say from the experience that I had with the Public Service it has improved so we are working on that to make those things happen.

 

Chairman:  PS, recommendation 14(a) has no responsible office.  Who is responsible to carry out recommendation 14(a) and (b)?

 

PS/Finance:  We now have officers in place in the payroll system.  We do not have a fully staffed payroll section but we now have those officers in place.  In fact this team can now go forward.  In the past payments and payrolls were sort of one …………but now I can tell the Committee that this has been addressed.   

            Recommendation 16.  I think that is now solved, the proof listing.  We finally can do that now so that is now addressed.  Again the ultimate is to get new payroll system going.

            Recommendation 17.  Again that will be affected into the procedure manual and we are still working on that.

            Recommendation 18.  …………..  They have been working on that.  NBSI is on electronic now, ANZ is not yet, so only NBSI is working on electronic.  We are working on that.

 

Hon Fono:  By electronic you mean payments are raised through the bank not manually

 

 

PS/Finance:  Yes, not manually and that is only for NBSI.  Again we will review the risk that involved that but that will work when Ministries do report back on things.  Payroll only enters what is given.  Who the people are we might not know them but the Ministries know who work for them and who do not work for them and what their account numbers are.  We will try our best endeavour to make sure that those numbers are right on our record.  I am not sure whether we have any problem so far on electronic.

 

Denty Tuke:  Yes, we encountered problem two years ago.  There was a problem sending electronic transfer to NBSI and ended up with one person receiving two salaries, so again it is I.T. stuff there.  So it means we have to recover from them but not all.

 

PS/Finance:  So that is two years ago, now I am sure we are looking and making things right for them.

 

Chairman:  We are using this electronic system will the bank charge the government for using that system?

 

PS/Finance:  If they charge it is very minimal.  They prefer electronic is easier, faster, efficient and accurate.  Manually even if I am processing on Wednesday 5 o’clock you won’t get it on Thursday they will have to enter that.

 

Chairman:  In Solomon Islands where we have lots of friends and anybody just goes in to the system and plays around with the system, how is the Ministry handling this case for its security in protecting the system?

 

PS/Finance: The electronic system is only a trail in the system that is why we can …………

 

Fono:  (speeches not recorded)

 

PS/ Finance:  As I have said also that those who under contract as the document comes in you enter them and you enter the termination day.  Those are some of the things we are looking into now.  So yes, we are trying to work on that.

 

Chairman:  So while waiting for the system to be in place what at the mechanisms at this transitional period for the Ministry to really work along with the Public Service Division so that those who are terminated cease their payments.  What are the mechanisms?

 

PS/Finance:  It really depends on Ministries.  So at the moment we are giving them the proof listing and in that proof listing they go through because they would know who are terminated and who are not terminated.  So that is the current system now.  They will have to check what is on the payroll and who is not.  So the communication between Public Service, Ministries and Finance is paramount to get this working.

 

Hon Koli:  Chairman, just to be in line with teachers in terms of payment.  I have known that some of the teachers do not even go to teach the kids in their primary schools or whatever but then they are still paid.  This is a concern to school committees and to parents because they are still paid.  I know some of the teachers.  I am talking about payment in line with teachers because some parents are concerned about this because they are paid for nothing.  There are two to three teachers still in town and I know some of them.  They are being paid but the kids are there.

 

PS/Finance:  That is in recommendation 22 Chairman.   Some of the things identified here is that in the Teaching Service there are several educational authorities who are the employers, and because they are the employers the trail or the documents from the authorities to the Ministry then to the Teaching Service.  I’m not sure about this year but five years ago I would it takes one year or two years before you can even know or realize the movements, some are even two years so then the question of ‘ghost workers’ comes in but they are teaching somewhere.   So you have several teaching services if I may say whereby in the authorities you have another process then you come to the Ministry they do the process then it goes to the Teaching Service.  That is the delay.  Finally when it goes to Finance to act on that it is already a year old so that needs a lot of improvement and we should be working on that.

 

PS/Public Service:  I think to confirm what my colleague said.  I think this act needs to be changed if we are to affect it.  Let not the authorities recruit and terminate those teachers, I think it should be done by Teaching Service directly and then will sort out the problem otherwise that problem will remain there.  So I think it will need a regulatory amendment on that act and the act needs to be changed.

 

Chairman:  Members and officials, I think one of the problems why teachers are always absent from duties is because of the banking system and the geographical location of our islands geographically located apart and they have to leave their schools in order to come to the bank as required by the bank.   So maybe if there is a system put in place organized by your division and the Ministry of Education there should be some mechanisms where teachers can access the bank without coming to Honiara.

 

PS/Finance:  The government has just announced the rural financing award to ANZ Bank.  Hopefully that will address rural banking system in the rural areas.  That is the physical getting money.  But coming back to the non communicational or paper that needs to be the other point that Education or Public Service might think of because the government is centralizing all the education which in the past they are run by the churches.  So rather than having the money in the payroll system it is much efficient to have a grant to the churches then that reduces the payroll in the Central Government so that churches can look after their teachers and maybe provide a better, efficient education.  At the moment teachers are saying they belong to the government and the missions are saying “you are for me.”  Anyway, I am here for Finance not for politics.

 

Hon Fono:  I think the suggestion made by PS/Public Service is worth considering so that Education brings that amendment to Parliament so that Parliament looks at those amendments.

 

PS/Finance:  So that should cover recommendations 22 and 23.  Recommendation 24 again goes back to the payroll system.  Recommendation 25 – Confidential information relating to employees pays should be secured.  Consideration should be given to recommencing the use of personal files and the appointment of a Registry Clerk to maintain them.  Solomon Islands has a real problem on confidential information so if anyone knows to really help us out please tell us later.

            Recommendation 26 – Yes, we have addressed that and worked on it already, and again it should become part of our governmental procedure system.

            Recommendation 27.  We should be doing that and that should become part of our procedure also.  These are simple things but by doing it we will make a good work practice.

 

Hon Fono:  Chairman, just one general question.  It seems that some of these discrepancies or shortfalls or weaknesses lie in the line Ministries.  How often do, whether the Public Service or Finance hold dialogues or meetings or trainings with the accountants of line Ministries to identify these weaknesses and suggest measures in which to improve on that?  How often, once in a year or?  Maybe that is why things will be improving rather than sending circulars and all these call the accountants and meet.  How often do you hold such consultations or meetings?

 

Denty Tuke:  The Payroll Section, especially the section that we are working on are trying to organize a workshop.  We are planning to have it twice a year to call all chief administrative officers or chief accountants in the Ministries to try to address all these day to day issues that we normally encounter within the normal running of the payroll system.

 

Chairman:  How many workshops have you conducted so far?

 

Denty Tuke:  So far since our advisers left, we have just had our new advisers now in place and at our meeting last week we planned to run a workshop maybe around June to have the first workshop for all chief administrative officers and chief accountants.

 

Hon Fono:  What about last year did you have a workshop?

 

Denty Tuke:  Yes, we did.

 

PS/Public Service:  Chairman, those are immediate measures that the Ministry has undertaken.  As you know Chairman, we have IPAM ………in IPAM for SIGAS.  Like Richard Fallows recently?  He will be the one who will be conducting courses or trainings for all accountants.  So we will be soon advertising positions for an accountant to coordinate SIGAS trainings for all our accountants.

 

PS/Finance:  Not only that but they always have daily meetings with the Chief Accountant, Payroll Officer in the Ministry.  Sometimes they just do not want to work on it.

 

PS/Finance:  Recommendation 28 and 29 - Overtime Allowances.  This is a good question.  Somebody will have to answer us on that.  I will leave it there for time being but it is a good question.  As I have said, which law will prevail?  G.O., Labour laws and all these,   so we will come with the answer later, I cannot give it to you.  So that is on overtime.  Again as I have said we had a lot of interpretations and when nothing comes, Finance do their own.      

            Recommendation 29 – yes we have a …  I think it boils down to when we are looking for houses for keeping all the documents and the rain came and spoilt them so we burnt them.  But from now on we will look after those records and we are hoping to finish 2006 accounts this year or maybe early next year so that the Audit quickly audits the documents so that they sink quickly.

 

Chairman:  In terms of General Orders, PS, situations do change and has this General Order being updated?

 

PS/Public Service:  Yes, Chairman, the …….Committee has established a Task Force and it comprise of all the stakeholders, the Unions, all Unions,  Finance and other Departments, so we are surely updating the General Orders.  There is an allocation in the budget to do that so we are aggressively pursuing that.

 

Chairman:  Why I asked this question is, so that this General Order is compatible with Labour.

 

PS/Public Service:  That is right.  Those are the ones we are trying and we are involving the Attorney General’s Chambers and a private lawyer to do that, yes definitely.

 

Ps/Finance:  The overtime error identified within payroll system.  This systematic error should be rectified and checked to ensure these errors.  Yes, they are working on it.  After satisfying the records and what not and if it needs deduction or what not, actions will be taken.  This is a hard one but we will certainly go through it systematically and sensitively but it sends a good signal already throughout the Public Service.  That should apply to recommendations 30, 31 and 32.

            Yes, we are working on the Payroll Master List.  Again going into the system they have to get it from Telepay put it into …..and all these other systems just to make this Master List working.  I think we have the Master List working now.  But what I am saying is I prefer a ‘press of a button’ and I have it to the computer.  It is still there.  Now you press it, get it, then you change it, do it and delete all this before you come to the final one.  So it takes sometime but yes the Master List is there.  We will work closely with the Public Service for those to agree. 

We have done all those key fields for recommendation 34.  We have taken that into the process of putting those in place.

Recommendation 35 – National Provident Fund (NPF) Field.  Yes, that has already been there.  I think the biggest problem for NPF in Recommendation 35 is those new ones, especially teachers.  We do not get their NPF Numbers on their appointments.  A lot of them are out in the provinces and that is why the NPF Numbers are not provided in time and all these and if you go to NPF the suspense account is increasing now and most of it is from the government, and most of them are from teachers.  We have five to six thousand teachers that is why we have that but we have the capability of coming out with that.  We might also go out to Paper and say these are names coming, complete your NPF Cards and it might go to the general reserve of the NPF.

Recommendation 36 – Termination Dates be entered into the system for all employees that are terminated.  That is what I have said earlier in Recommendation 19.

Recommendation 37 – Review of ….currently been done by Treasury.  We only have one Super User that is the I.T.  So there is only one Super User in there which means if he did anything we can still …him; either him or her.

Recommendation 38 – Yes, that has been done also.  Recommendation 39 – They reminded me not only for salary but also within Finance.  There is a system that in Finance that reminds a                                      change of passwords every month and eventually I do not have enough passwords.

Recommendation 40 – Recommend that a Disaster Recovery Plan be developed.  As I have said, the biggest threat is the tsunami, and again there is a report already on the risk and recommendation for the recovery.  So we will table it on Thursday next week during the I.T. committee.

Recommendation 41 – Consideration should be given to the replacement of the current payroll system Telepay.  Yes, we are working on that now on replacement of both Telepay and Maximise which is the accounts system.  I hope AusAid will help us.  Rather than talking about it we will do it.

Recommendation 42 – 

 

Hon Fono:  Before you move on to that in terms of your I.T. personnel, are we having adequate I.T. personnel to look at the change of the system from Telepay?  I mean local not expatriate.

 

PS/Finance:  There are counterparts in place.  The experience in the past almost fifteen years ago when this was introduced, it was introduced with no training, boom and left.

 

Chairman:  Do you have a training programme in place?

 

Denty Tuke:  Two local personnel are currently training in Australia at the moment.

 

PS/Finance:  This time the policy of the Ministry of Finance is that you work with us, that is why it will take five years.  It does not come in and go.  We will take into consideration too, all these that we have gone through and that is why it is good that we have this audit report that looks after all these, and then that will become something that the I.T. group will take.  Then the training will go with it and the identification of the people that work within, there is action plan for each.  As my colleague from PS/Public Service said, that is no longer a short term but a ten year period whereby you have the project that looks after it up to five years and during that five years you are actually training and by the end of five years you have a Solomon Islander that can take it for the next five years.  In the next five years that Solomon Islander will also train a Solomon Islander to take it further.  So that is the position that the Ministry is taking on all projects and all programmes in the Ministry.

            Recommendation 42 – We are still working on that.  We have not had a past good track on Teaching Service yet so we will be working with Education.  But we have worked well with Public Service so far and we will work more with the Public Service Division.

 

Hon Fono:  Mr Chairman, on Public Service do you have any system in place where you identify your employees either through number apart from their personal files?

 

PS/Public Service:   As you can see from the civil list there is now a number, a post number allocated to each employee.  We have started that already and we need to improve as we go along with the system.

 

Chairman:  So that is the Employee I.D.?

 

PS/Public Service:  That is right.  But again we will be working closely with Finance so that those two systems work together.    

 

PS/Finance:  Recommendation 43 as I have said, we have not really worked with the Public Service but we will do that now that we have some capacity to go forward.

 

Chairman:  Recommendation 44.

 

PS/Finance: Recommendation 44 – I think Public Service has just mentioned that.

            Recommendation 45 – As I have said, we have not really worked with the Teaching Service we will be working on that now, hopefully finish it this year so that next year is clean taking into consideration what Public Service has said.

            Recommendation 46 – Again will be liaising with Public Service on their policy on increments.  At the moment we are just sort of listening in to whatever comes in.  If there is increment then we do it, it is not automatic.

 

Hon Fono:  It is not you who determines increment?

 

PS/Finance:  No.

 

Hon Fono:   It is Public Service?

 

PS/Finance:  Yes.

 

Hon Fono:  In case of teacher, teachers?

 

PS/Finance:  Yes.

 

Hon Fono:  But I understand there is a problem of teachers being on acting basis for a number of years.  They are on probation.

 

PS/Finance:  Again that is a communication problem within the Ministry.  As you will always notice that we process what is given to us on salary.  If you don’t do anything it continues on so the changes come from the Ministries, and we will work with Public Service and Teaching Service on the salary authority form to make sure that all those fields are filled and I have given strong instructions to these officers that they must make sure that those salary authority forms have all the information it needs.  We need to put those profiles right.

             Recommendation 47 – Yes, we are working with Education.  This is very interesting – Pay Slips.  We will be reminding them because it is a requirement that all the employees need to know their pay slips and make sure that they query with the salary officers in their ministries.  I would like to emphasize that Ministry of Finance is not there to answer pay slip query for all Ministries, let them go to the sources in the Ministries and query them what happened there and find out.  But pay slips are not received on time too so we will try our best to send them to you.  If we can do it electronically we will try and do that down the trail.

            So Chairman, and Committee that is our response to the Audit Report and our Action Plan.  We will do our utmost best to improve more this year, and when the Auditor has time to do it again we welcome them to come and do it for us so that we can improve more on it.  Thank you.

 

Chairman:  Thank you Permanent Secretary and officials, and before I open to Committee for any general comments, I would like to thank you for this job well done.  As you earlier stated today that Central Payroll is very important to everybody so therefore we need to keep a cross-check every activity that is done in the Ministry.  Maybe it is better for your Ministry and officials to provide to this Committee a quarterly update of this work programme to the Committee.  Would you be in a position to do that update?

 

PS/Finance:  Yes.

 

Chairman:  And is this an update?

 

PS/Finance:  That is an update but I mean we have covered all those in our presentation.

 

Chairman:  And in relation to what the Permanent Secretary for Public Service has raised relating to employing authority, he made reference to the Governor General, making some ………section 44 which the Constitution reads:  “Subject to the provision of this Constitution and of any law, the Governor General acting on the advice of the Prime Minister may constitute office of Solomon Islands make appointment to any such office and terminate in any such appointment as it ever be used to create and appoint officers in positions.”

 

PS/Public Service:  Recently it has never been used.