FinSec Explains Role of Public Officers in Payment Processes

We now take you back to our interview with the Financial Secretary Joseph Waight as questions were posed pertaining to the role of public officials in the Mira procurement controversy.  Speaking on the matter, Waight explained that the involvement of ministers and chief executive officers generally occurs during the procurement and tendering stages of a project rather than during the processing of individual payments.  According to the Financial Secretary, senior policymakers may have input regarding the approval of projects, contracts, and procurement decisions, but the day-to-day administration of invoices and payment vouchers is handled through established procedures within the respective ministries.

Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary: “Often if it comes to the procurement, if you’re sending out a tender to say supply rations or something then the tender has to be organised in a certain way, vegetables in one batch, maybe poultry meats and so on, fresh dry goods. You send out the bids, you have a committee to look and to see what, you know and the problem is too that there’s a lot of variation in the quality of what you’re getting. You have to be careful. It’s not always a lowest price, you know. But then a committee looks at it, makes a recommendation. The recommendation comes to the Ministry of Finance. We look at it again, we sign, then it goes to the contractor general before the contractor is issued to make sure that all the steps were in place and depending on the type of tendering arrangement, all was in order. So at that stage the CEO will be involved. Very rarely does a minister get involved. It’s not his function, or even a junior minister to look at the tendering process.”

Waight also addressed public perceptions about the role of the Ministry of Finance, clarifying that his office does not directly oversee every invoice or payment processed across government ministries.  He explained that while the Ministry of Finance establishes the rules, policies, and financial framework under which ministries operate, responsibility for verifying invoices, certifying expenditures, and processing payments rests primarily with accounting personnel and authorized officers within individual ministries.

Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary: “Well, I don’t know why people do it. I mean, they would have their own explanations. No, this is something fairly recent to me. But then again, you know, if I worked at a treasury I might have been closer to the action, so to speak. We in the ministry are more involved with the releasing of money and making sure that the contracts are coming in correctly. But the actual payments, that’s downstream, that’s in the ministries themselves.”

Reporter: The Prime Minister says that government is looking at the central procurement office. How would that sort of alleviate the situation? 

Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary: “Procurement will assist in making sure that you’re getting best value for money and getting the quality you need and the tendering. But payments reside with the ministries. The ministries get budget allocations. There’s an accounting officer. The Ministry of Finance doesn’t we don’t operate that far downstream. We’re more at the headwaters.”