FIVE provinces have been lifted from the Disclaimer of Audit Opinion since the commencement of the Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme (PGSP).

These are Central Islands, Isabel, Western, Choiseul and Temotu Provinces. 

This was revealed by the Minister for Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS), Wayne Ghemu when delivering his remarks at the launching of the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) last Friday at the Heritage Park Hotel. 

“On the accountability front, the Ministry has lifted five provinces from the Disclaimer of Audit Opinion since the commencement of PGSP. 

“I must mention the Central Islands and Isabel Provinces have had clean audit reports consistently for the past annual audits, whilst Western and Choiseul Provinces have qualified audit opinions for 10 years in a row now. 

“Temotu Province joined Western and Choiseul in acquiring qualified audit opinions in the past two annual audits,” Minister Ghemu added.  

Minister Ghemu said, despite capacity and other limitations, there has been a 100 percent submission rate of financial statements to the Office of the Auditor General on or before the due date of 31 December for the past 10 years. 

He described this achievement as remarkable, considering the statistics of only two financial statements by nine provinces for audit from 1993 to 2008 instead of 135 statements. 

“This is a direct result of the Ministry and development partners’ efforts in continuous capacity building of provincial officers. 

“The ministry, through closer working relationships with our development partners, upholds accountability and regulatory compliance whilst delivering the needed resilient infrastructure projects through performance-based grant systems,” Minister Ghemu added.

A Disclaimer of Opinion in auditing refers to a statement issued by auditors indicating that they could not form an opinion on the accuracy, fairness and validity of an entity’s financial statements.

By AGNES MENANOPO 
Solomon Star, Honiara