THE AUDIT INTO ESP IS NOW OUT: Audit finds breaches by officials into $33m allocation for productive sector

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The audit into the Economic Stimulus Package of grant allocation of $33m to the productive sector has found breaches to internal payment process as officers managing the ESP personally signed many of them but provided no evidence that they had handed the funds to the beneficiaries.

The audit released this week also revealed a total of cash grant of $33m were paid to farmers and local produce handing companies with $7m to the tourism sector.

However, the Office of the Auditor General, said applications were not always filled with payment forms or payment documentations, so it was not possible for the OAG to confirm that all payments were made in response to valid applications.

“The payment process breached expected internal control procedures in that officers personally signed for many payments for beneficiaries but provided no evidence that they had handed the payment on to the designated person. That was the case with almost a third of the payments made through the imprest account,” the OAG said in its report.

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.