The Auditor General, Alastair Swarbrick, made public today a report on the status of financial accountability reporting in the Cayman Islands Government as at 30 September 2013. The report is an update on previous reports issued by the Office of the Auditor General on this subject, and reports the progress on the financial statement audits up to and including the fiscal year ending 30 June 2012.
In this latest update, the Auditor General has confirmed that there continues to be progress and that the Government is moving towards more timely reporting. The report states that all government entities submitted their 30 June 2012 financial statements to his Office by the 31 August 2012 deadline. By 30 September 2013 (fifteen months later) the audits of the financial statements for 29 (71%) out of the 41 entities have been completed. The Auditor General also reported that there are only 9 audits from 2005 through 2011 that remain to be completed by his Office, effectively reducing the backlog of audits to a point where it should not impact the ability of the Government to become current.
The Auditor General intends to report more comprehensively on the outcomes from his audits of the financial statements for the year ending 30 June 2012 in the near future.
"There continues to be progress in the timeliness of financial reporting, with increasing numbers being completed within the statutory timescales or significantly earlier than had previously been the case. However there continues to be a number of entities where challenges still exist to moving forward the timeliness of financial reporting” said Mr. Swarbrick. "My Office will continue to work with Government to address the challenges, and move forward the quality and timeliness of financial reporting to ultimately enable accountability and transparency in Government finances to be restored.”
The report is available on the Office of the Auditor General website at: www.auditorgeneral.gov.ky. More information regarding this report can be obtained by contacting Alastair Swarbrick at the Office of the Auditor General at (345) 244-3201.