MVR 2 billion of state finances unaccounted for: Finance Minister

The Minister of Finance Moosa Zameer on Saturday said the authority’s publicized financial data so far, has revealed MVR 2 billion unaccounted for.

According to the minister, the authority had stopped its Weekly Fiscal Development series - providing weekly updates of public finances in accordance with the Public Finance Act - earlier in June this year owing to discrepancies in financial reports which included unrecorded budget allocations to development projects.

He made these statements at the press conference held to highlight the works carried out by the Ministry of Finance.

Zameer said that discussions were held with Auditor General Hussain Niyazy on how to reconcile the financial records.

“We have discovered there is an approximate MVR 2 billion difference in the records, this means if we are to include it in our state budget for the year it would exceed by this amount compared to last year’s budget,” he added.

The minister affirmed the records will be amended only after seeking counsel from Attorney General Ahmed Usham.

The second alarming discovery, according to Zameer, was the insufficient budget allocations for several projects.

“For instance, there were several projects like this last year. So, when the state releases advance payments for several small allocations on the budget as the year draws to an end, these amounts are carried on to the following year’s budget which in turn has resulted in an approximate total of MVR 3 billion in cashflow issues,” Zameer added.

The minister further noted the ministry is discussing with the Attorney General to seek for possible legal reforms if necessary to ensure such malpractices do not occur in future, and will seek advice from the Auditor General to develop policies to resolve the issue.

Usham, who also joined the press conference, said that inclusion of the unaccounted money in this year’s budget is in breach of the Public Finance Act and the Constitution, which stipulates that the state can only incur expenses according to the budget.

The Attorney General further said that over the last few years, the state had spent excessive of the annual budget, and later included this in the supplementary budget, which he said was unlawful as well.

“There are significant malpractices in managing the state finances, and we are relentless about such violations,” Usham added.

The Attorney General affirmed necessary action against culpable parties would be taken, and further affirmed to reform the laws to ensure such issues get resolved permanently.