B.C. Auditor General John Doyle has issued a scathing report that essentially orders the B.C. Legislative Assembly to get its books in order.
Doyle said the Legislative Assembly is failing to follow the kinds of accounting practices expected of other government departments when accounting for how it spends its $63 million annual budget.
Because of the problems in reporting, he said he cannot conclude with any certainty whether the Legislative Assembly’s books are balanced, and slammed the government for failing to heed advice he gave in 2007.
“There are significant deficiencies in the financial control and governance of theLegislative Assembly’s financial affairs,” Doyle concluded in his report.
“As a result, I am unable to conclude if the Legislative Assembly’s trial balance financial information is fairly stated for any of the years audited.”
The irony of Doyle’s criticisms is that the Legislative Assembly is the branch of government responsible for passing laws that require proper accounting within various government departments and Crown corporations that it has created. Yet, “the Legislative Assembly clearly falls short of the basic accounting and financial management standards that the rest of the provincial public sector is required to meet,” Doyle said in his report.
Doyle’s audit found a lack of documents supporting expenses, a lack of disclosure on payments made to MLAs and a general absence of managerial oversight.
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