Publicise annual performance reports, public entities told

TREASURY Registrar, Nehemiah Mchechu, is impressed with improvement on the performance of public institutions in the report of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG), asking the entities to start publicizing their annual performance reports effectively from next year.

Mr Mchechu made the statement on Wednesday when he met with the board chairpersons and Chief Executive Officers (CEO’s) of Public Agencies, Institutions and other Statutory Corporations.

He said by making public all their annual performance reports, members of the public will be able to get fresh information on positive things that have been done by the institutions, hence enhancing transparency.

“We shall issue a circular in the matter, effectively from next year, it will be mandatory for all Public Agencies, Institutions and other Statutory Corporations to make public their annual performance reports,” he said.

He also issued a go ahead for all public institutions that are ready to publish their report this year.

Going by the recent report of the CAG, Mr Mchechu said public institutions have recorded an improvement in their audit report; however, he said there are some key issues that have to be worked on.

He asked the public institutions to ensure timely closure of all the books every year, adding that the CAG report from the year 2021/22 shows that only 17 per cent of the 6,500 issues were not fully closed.

“The institutions must also get rid of the questionable recurring findings in the report of the CAG, this will enable the entities to get clean reports as well as contributing highly to the government coffers for national development,” he said.

Due to this, he instructed the board chairpersons of all institutions with pending issues in regard to CAG audit report to ensure everything is settled by responding to all queries.

Presenting the audit report to President Samia Suluhu Hassan in March this year, CAG Charles Kichere said out of the audited 203 public organisations, 196 were issued with unqualified opinions, the remaining got qualified (5) and others received disclaimer of opinions.

Responding to the CAG report, President Samia said the government has to ensure proactivity of all the public organisations.

Her instructions came in response to the CAG report showing that there are public institutions that have been making losses every year.

According to her, public institutions were formed to do business on behalf of the government, but things haven’t been the same with some of the parastatals, including the National Development Corporation (NDC).

She said despite its dissatisfactory performance, for many years NDC has continued to receive a budget on its day to day operations, a move that increases government expenditure.

“NDC has been there since I was in secondary school, it has not been making positive progress for many years, yet it is still in operation, let us conduct an assessment on whether we still need to have these loss making institutions,” she directed.

“We have over 300 parastatals, there is no need to continue entertaining the loss making institutions, some of them have lost their relevance,” she added.