Auditor General releases Report to the House of Assembly on Reviews of Departments and Crown Agencies for the Year Ended 31 March 2006

John L. Noseworthy, CA, Auditor General, today released his Report to the House of Assembly on Reviews of Departments and Crown Agencies for the Year Ended 31 March 2006.

The report contains approximately 475 pages of conclusions, commentary, recommendations and auditees� comments.  The report outlines the reflections of the Auditor General, the results of reviews of government departments and Crown agencies, and information relating to monitoring of prior years� recommendations.  It also includes a section relating to the completion of Phase I of the review of constituency allowance claims by Members of the House of Assembly.

Mr. Noseworthy highlights specific concerns in relation to:

• Factors present at the House of Assembly establishment which contributed to excess constituency allowance payments to Members of the House of Assembly.  Such factors included financial controls being effectively eliminated, weaknesses in internal controls, and inaccurate IEC annual reports being tabled in the House of Assembly (Part 2.1).
   

• Management practices at the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, including instances of conflict of interest, non-compliance with the Public Tender Act, significant amounts of overtime paid to staff, overtime not approved in accordance with government policy, inaccurate accounting records, and lack of internal controls (Part 2.2).
   

• Expenditures and human resource practices at the College of the North Atlantic including a lack of adherence to government policy, particularly in the human resources area, which led to questionable transactions and resulted in instances of inappropriate expenditures of public funds (Part 2.4).
   

• Management practices and problems with project developers, which have led to an estimated loss to the Newfoundland Government Fund Limited of $1.449 million (Part 2.8).
   

• Administration of the Community Corrections Program at the Department of Justice, including issues with offender risk assessments and the level of offender supervision (Part 2.11).
   

• Management of the province�s road system by the Department of Transportation and Works, particularly in terms of assessing the physical condition of the roads, the focus of road maintenance expenditures, and funding for road construction projects (Part 2.16).
   

• Monitoring of pension plans by the Department of Government Services, including the need for a formal risk assessment process (Part 2.9).
   

• Management of projects under the Agriculture Policy Framework Initiative administered by the Department of Natural Resources, particularly in terms of insufficient documentation to support payments, and issues with how projects were monitored (Part 2.14).
   

• Administration of the Job Creation Program by the Department of Municipal Affairs, including the rationale for project selection and how projects were monitored (Part 2.13).
   

• Evaluation of recreation grant applications by the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and how the department monitors the effectiveness of the program (Part 2.15).
   

• Licensing and enforcement practices at the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation, including licences being issued inconsistently and in contravention of the Liquor Control Act and Regulations, and violations by licensees not being resolved in a timely and consistent manner (Part 2.6).
   

• Recording, monitoring and securing firearms and ammunition by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, including an inaccurate inventory system, Firearms Policy infractions not being properly followed up, and inspections not being performed or not properly recorded (Part 2.12).
   

The report also provides information on unfunded liabilities at the health care boards (Part 2.10), accumulated deficits at the school boards (Part 2.5), Crown agencies� audited financial statements and management letters (Part 2.3), and expenditures of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (Part 2.7). 

Mr. Noseworthy�s report is available on the Office of the Auditor General Web site at //www.gov.nl.ca/ag/reports.htm.

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Media contact:

Nina Goudie

Director of Information Resources

709-729-2346

2007 01 31                                                        9:30 a.m.