It has been found that some Constituency Development Offices received Economic Stimulation Package funding that they had never applied for.
In the audit report released by the Auditor General’s Office yesterday, it states that a total of $41.3m was paid to Constituency Development Offices to distribute to constituents.
The report says in most cases the offices received $600,00 in 2020 and a further $200,000 in 2021.
“Applications were called for from the MPs, but it appears that some CDOs’ of the MPs’ appear to receive grants they didn’t apply for,” the audit reveals.
One CDO the OAG (Office of the Auditor General) spoken to didn’t realise the funds were from ESP.
The report further states that there was little on how the funds were used.
“Apart from confirming that the funds were paid to MPs’ through the MOFT (Ministry of Finance) payment system there was no practical way, through documentation review, of confirming how the funds were used,” the audit report found.
History of ESP
In anticipation of the negative economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government implemented the stimulus package (ESP) of $309m dollars to support and enable business and households to continue to produce, trade, employ people, spend and boost aggregate demand in the economy.
It was approved by Cabinet on 6th May 2020 and applications were accepted as of 26th May of the year with payments made over 2020-2021.