BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
Assurance of managing conflicts of interest under the COVID-19 Economic Stimulus Package (ESP) applications is not true, the ESP 2020-2021 audit report has found.
The ESP Oversight Committee claimed that under the reference policy, the conflict of interest or potential conflicts of interest has been properly managed where all recommendations were made.
However, according to finding number two of the report, government officials did not properly identify or manage conflicts of interest or potential conflicts of interest arising during the administration of the ESP.
“In this, the example that I alluded to, where we spoke about one government officer signing for 251 interest account checks worth approximately $6.8 million,’’ said Auditor General David Dennis.
“That same officer was also involved in encouraging and preparing applications for individuals. The committee, however, wish to confirm that under the reference policy, the conflict of interest or potential conflicts of interest have been properly managed through the establishment of an Oversight Committee where all recommendations were made,’’ said Dennis.
“But it’s important to see that there is a linkage here. On to our next finding, again still about grant administration. What we found was that some grant criteria were established, but there was often no documented assessment against the criteria,’’ he said.
He said that Documentation supporting grants was often unavailable and some successful applications do not appear to meet the designated criteria.
“What we also saw when we were reviewing the documentation is that there was a big difference between the quality of the applications that were received. Some submitted a comprehensive business case with data and graphs detailing the history of the business, others just submitted what is little more than a request to fund a business idea,’’ Dennis explains.
He said that the Information provided in the application addressing the stated criteria did not seem to be a determinant of whether the funding would be provided or how much would be provided.
“There was no documentation available to indicate what was considered in assessing the application. In some cases, some people applied for $80,000 and received $5,000. In other cases, they applied for a smaller amount and got a bigger amount,’’ said Dennis.
“So, it wasn’t clear to us how this was decided, and I think the concern that we also had is that the documentation supporting this was often not available,’’ he said.
