MOT – Unauthorised Advance Payments by Portfolio Agencies, Misclassified Expenditure and $51.8M Unresolved AIA Variance

Auditor General's Findings

The 2023/2024 Auditor General’s Annual Report (subsections 3.2.37–3.2.43) found that, in auditing the Ministry of Tourism’s (MOT) 2018/2019 Recurrent Appropriation Accounts, the Ministry employed a practice of requesting its portfolio agencies to make advance payments on its behalf without going through the established commitment control process, contrary to the Financial Instructions. For the period under review, 94 such requests were made to two agencies totalling $36,003,568.14, of which only $30,424,181.68 was reimbursed, understating expenditure by $5,579,386.46 as at March 31, 2019 .

In 2018/2019, the Ministry also reimbursed $2,394,825.90 in leftover advances from 2017/2018, which inflated that year’s expenditure figures. The Accounting Officer explained that advances were used because the Ministry, under a Shared Services arrangement with the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), did not have direct access to make payments through the GFMIS. The ministry further added that some suppliers (e.g., for overseas travel and hotel accommodation) required pre-payment; measures including a requirement that invoices be submitted within a week of an advance have since been put in place.

The report also found 14 expenditure transactions totalling $7,396,145.64 incorrectly classified as Object 25 instead of Object 22.

Additionally, the report added that a $51,815,500.93 variance arose between the Ministry’s records and the Appropriations-in-Aid (AIA) reported by the Tourism Product Development Co. Ltd (TPDCo), which remained unresolved at the time of the report despite management advising that corrective steps would be taken.