NATIONAL PARLIAMENT OF
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE TRANSCRIPT
Inquiry into the 2007 Supplementary
Appropriation Bill 2007 - Head 288: Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour
(Uncorrected
Version – subject to changes upon revision)
Mr J Wickham
(PS): As you can see there is only one
item, subhead 0181-6152 – provincial …….. As you would appreciate there were a
number of activities being organized, one of course is the Cultural Trade Show
and we are also assisting Rennell/Bellona Province, allocating a further
$285,000 for the hosting of a mini show or cultural festival. Otherwise as you can see that has gone up over
and above our budget allocation for this year.
This amount, we hope, should be able to cover some of the additional expenses
incurred.
Also there were quite a number of bills
that we are yet to pay for, still outstanding especially for Auki and to Small
and Medium Enterprise Council who is the organizer of the Trade Show.
As you would appreciate it is quite expensive
operating or running trade shows in the provinces given the logistics and also
other expenses normally are quite higher than what one would expect if we are
to host such shows. This is the program
we are now in so we are intending to continue this program for other provinces
as of next year. For the meantime this amount
should be sufficient for us to meet our outstanding commitments. Thank you Chairman.
Hon Fono: I would like to thank the Permanent Secretary
for his explanation of his budget that is allocated under the Supplementary
Budget. Can the PS inform the Committee on
his submission to the Budget Unit because as far as the submission is concerned,
it is much higher than what is allocated now for his Ministry?
PS, are there any reasons given by
the Budget Unit as to why it cuts your submission giving you only $500,000,
which has already been spent on the recent Trade Show?
There are other important items that
you have included in your submission, which were not included in the
supplementary budget. Has the Budget
Unit given you any reasons as to why it cuts your submission?
Mr J Wickham
(PS): Unfortunately, I am not fully
versed with the decisions as to why our submission was omitted. There may be reasons which I am not being
informed formally. But as you would note
in our submission there were a number of heads that we wanted to be included but
which are not catered for. Take for
example the recruitment of Parliament Secretaries. We have expended substantial amount of money
to renovate offices, purchase tables, chairs, laptops, cabinets, etc, and we
need funding for these so that it could take care of those.
Also we have outstanding affiliation
fees in particular to the International Labour Organisation and Asia & Pacific
Coconut Community. Originally we were
told that Foreign Affairs will meet all these costs in terms of affiliation
fees to organizations. It just came out
recently that Foreign Affairs is not in the position to do so and so we have decided
to request.
This is very, very important because
my Minister was very embarrassed in the last ILO meeting because he was not
able to vote in the ILO Meeting Convention in
Further down below there are student
fees. As you know there is the National
Test Training and Testing Unit which is part of Labour. Early this year we were told by SICHE that there
is an increase in fees and there is an additional 74 students that need to be
sponsored through the National Trade Training Testing. We do not have that money at this stage which
amounts to about $500,000 plus allowances for the apprentices. This is something which came up early this
year which the Ministry has not been informed early. If it has been informed earlier we would have
included these.
This is important because these
students are studying according to program but no fees paid to SICHE and if we
can be able to pay for their fees we might be able to help the students
continue with their studies.
The others of course, I can say just leave
them like provincial tours, conference, seminars etc.
The other one of course is office rental. As you know the Ministry has been renting a residence
up here for the Labour Office. We were
hoping that the renovation of the Ministry of one part of the building to be
completed before June/July. Unfortunately
that did not happen and so we are still continuing to rent the premises and so
we are asking for additional funds. But
that is the submission we made. May be the
Budget Unit is in a better position to further tell us anything.
Mr Chairman: Can you just confirm whether this is your
submission to the budget process where you ask for $2.5million and you were
only given $500,000?
Mr J Wickham
(PS): That is right.
Mr Chairman: And there was no feedback from them on your
submission.
Mr J Wickham: I do not have any feedback. May be the Chief Accountant might have it,
but I do not know.
Mr Chairman: No feedback. Any more questions on this $500,000 for trade
shows?
Hon Fono: Can the PS explain how they spent this
$500,000?
Mr J Wickham
(PS): There is allocation of about
$600,000 under the 2007budget. You would
note that two months prior to the occasion we provided about $250,000 to SMEC, a
further $250,000 to Malaita Provincial Assembly account to run the Agriculture
and Cultural Show and a further additional $180,000 to meet outstanding costs just
a week after the Trade Show. All these
are virements under the accounts.
To date we have about $150,000
outstanding yet to be paid. Also given
the time period and the fact that the occasion was coming quickly, we have also
decided to help renovate some of the premises in Auki for purposes of
accommodating delegates going over to Auki.
This amount is well beyond. We even
have to pay the CSP about $100,000 for the groundwork for the place where the
Agriculture Show was staged, which was not included in the Budget but because
the showground is in a swampy area we have to give funds to do the groundwork. These are additional unexpected costs that we
have to pay.
Hon Fono: As these are public funds, were they given
out as imprest so that they have to be reimbursed showing how the funds were
spent?
Mr J Wickham: We expect them to provide reports. As far as MMEC is concerned we have received a
preliminary report. We would also expect
Malaita Provincial Assembly to provide us with its report on this.
Mr Chairman: Any other queries or questions. Seeing that there are no queries or questions
I think that is it. Thank you Permanent
Secretary and your officials for coming.