Old Irregularities, New Questions for Defense CEO

The irregularities happened before Francis Usher became CEO, but he will still have to answer for how the Ministry of National Defense addressed them. Usher is preparing to appear before the Joint Public Accounts Committee over concerns raised in the Auditor General’s 2017 report. He says many of the recommendations have since been implemented, including stronger oversight of non-public funds within the Belize Defense Force.

 

Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of National Defense

“I received a copy of the report a few weeks ago. I’m going through it with our legal counsel at the ministry. I think you know him. And I do know that I’m scheduled to appear with the Joint Public Accounts Committee sometime in September, but the date has not been set as yet, where we will or they are hoping to get some answers to some of their questions, but we are reviewing it in detail.”

 

Shane Williams

“Now, this is long before you. Has anything stood out in what the findings and the recommendations have been forward to you?”

 

Francis Usher

“A lot of the recommendations are things that we have already put into place. We have the Inspector General who is a, a trained auditor who audits the non-public funds which are the BDF fund, the benevolent fund all of the, the messes, as we call it, the Corporals Club, the Sergeants Mess, and the Officers Mess. And so we’ve gone through annual audits of most of these accounts. So the, as far as the using of the funds in the account, multiple signatories have to be in place, multiple layers of approvals are necessary. So we have put a lot of the a lot of the recommendations in place, and we’ll continue to work on those.” 

 

Auditor General Maria Rodriguez says the annual reports are years behind because the Accountant General has not submitted the required annual financial statements.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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