Senior advisor says the administation has maintained transparency throughout the pandemic

A high-level Government official is adamant that the Mia Mottley-led administration increased its accountability and transparency during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Government’s Senior Economic Advisor Dr Kevin Greenidge shared this position yesterday while highlighting several initiatives that had been undertaken.

Speaking during a panel discussion hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB) entitled Accountability in a Time of Crisis to mark Accountants’ Week 2021, Dr Greenidge said Government had put a system in place to track all COVID-19-related expenditures.

“We had the IMF meeting last week and we were able to show them in detail, point by point what we spent on COVID-related expenditures…what was the cost of the ashfall cleanup, what was the cost of Hurricane Elsa, before we didn’t have that in our accounts.

“In the heart of the COVID response Government put in place measures where Government had to report to Parliament on all COVID-related procurements, contracts in excess of $1 million so that Parliament had to give approval on these and had knowledge of what those procurements were,” Dr Greenidge said.

He said a new Procurement Bill would also be brought to Parliament by the end of the year which would see a strengthening of the procurement system to ensure “fairness, integrity and transparency”.

Additionally, Dr Greenidge said a revised Financial Management Act now allowed for standardized procedures for managing, monitoring and reporting on Government’s fiscal objectives.

He said public officers in the various ministries were now required to submit spending, procurement and cash plans to the Ministry of Finance and were prohibited from doing anything to increase Government’s liability.

Dr Greenidge said financial and non-financial performance reports were now expected from every ministry to be included in the Estimates.

“That I think was a huge step to improve the level of accountability and transparency,” he insisted.

The advisor also hinted that the old format of the Budget would be discontinued to be replaced with a new, detailed procedure.

“I am still at a loss why persons would be asking for a Budget to come when you’ve had so many Budget speeches by the Prime Minister. We have actually introduced during the COVID – we haven’t finished it only started it during the COVID period – the introduction of a fiscal rule. By the end of this year we expect to adopt regulations for a procedural fiscal rule which guides fiscal policy,” Dr Greenidge explained.

“That rule will require Government to prepare and publish annually a fiscal strategy, not just a Budget of numbers but a strategy, a multi-year strategy of its plans going forward.”

He added that as an interim step Government had already tabled in Parliament in August a fiscal framework for the fiscal year 2022-2023 containing all of the medium-term projections and discussion of fiscal policy objectives.

According to Dr Greenidge a mid-year report was sent to Parliament on October 15 outlining what had been done so far to reach those goals.

“I firmly believe that we have actually increased accountability and transparency during the crisis in an effort to remain transparent and to bring people along with what needed to be done. Our Prime Minister has said that from the beginning and has asked the economic team and the ministries to ensure that things are done always in a transparent matter,” Dr Greenidge noted.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb