NATIONAL PARLIAMENT OF
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE TRANSCRIPT
Inquiry into the 2007 Supplementary
Appropriation Bill 2007 - Head 274: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, External Trade
and Immigration
Monday 6 August 2007
(Uncorrected
Version – subject to changes upon revision)
MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Chairman: ….in which $5.4 million has been appropriated to
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Immigration. The Permanent Secretary and his accountant
are here to explain how that money is going to be used. I thank the Permanent Secretary and his
colleague for coming. Thank you for your
time. I will give you the time to explain
why you need that money before we can ask you some questions if we have some on
your submission.
Permanent Secretary: Thank you
Chairman, and members of the Committee for the opportunity to look at this
supplementary for Ministry of Foreign Affairs, External Trade and
Immigration. We all understand that
there is only a certain amount of the cake that we can have on that. What we have is the same percent of what we
requested earlier in our supplementary and we fully understand that we can’t have
everything but at least we get something
The 5.4 million that we have there
has indicated most of those given bodies.
We did meet with the Ministry of Finance and Treasury when we submitted
our supplementary to them so when this came out as it is we were not really
sort of happy or satisfied because of the priorities. Of course these are priorities but we also
have other priorities, and at this stage I would like to say that we were
expecting the shortfalls in overseas missions to take precedence over
this. But be that as it may we accept
the allocation that has been given to us to the supplementary and we will work on
it on our arrangements when the budget is passed to give money to other goals
which that are also priorities within the Ministry. Thank you Chair, I will leave it at that.
Chairman: Thank you
Permanent Secretary. $5.4 million is
primary going to meet commitments of the Ministry to overseas bodies. Any queries on that?
Hon Fono: Chairman, are
all these agencies or international organizations that we have arrears with
because some are not included in it?
Permanent Secretary: Yes,
Chairman, the others come under what you have on payment to overseas bodies and
thus others. That includes bodies like
FFA, the Forum Secretariat, Regional Organizations
that are not specifically given subheads for that. It does include some arrears and also current
contributions.
Hon Fono: Can the
Permanent Secretary explain to the Committee how they are going to meet the
shortfalls on our missions because given the fact they are in different
countries and maybe the allocations are not enough to allow their offices to continue
until the end of the year? How are we
going to address that problem since your submissions were not included in this
year’s current supplementary budget?
Permanent Secretary: Thank you
Chair, and thank you honourable member for that question. As I have said, the only option that we have
left is we are going to vire from some of these funds
that were approved in the supplementary.
Have they given us the opportunity to come back to us before it went
through Cabinet we would like to see overseas missions to be given priority here. That would have
been our position. But since that is not
the case we have no choice but we are going to vire
from these funds and if need be we are also going entitle to apply for
contingency funds.
Chairman: The capital
expenditure started off with $6,000 and then it went up to $2 million.
Permanent Secretary: Thank you
chair, the initial amount that we have submitted for this year’s budget left
for that capital expenditure is for a passport printing machine for Immigration
Division. We did request the $2 million
something for this year’s budget but we were only given $6,000.
Chairman: This trade
mission, where is this?
Permanent Secretary: This external
trade division as you know is now of Foreign Affairs and this is basically for
trade missions that we intend to undertake to various countries especially in
the South East Asian Regions.
Chairman: My concern is
that all these payments are standing payments.
They are standing payments for the Ministry’s commitment over the years
and I am just surprised that they are appearing in this supplementary. I would have thought that this one should
have been submitted in the budget proper seeing that it is the cost that has
been seen in the Ministry all these years. I am just concerned why were they not included
in the proper budget of the Ministry?
Permanent Secretary: Thank you
chair, they were of course included.
Chairman: Have they
been resubmitted?
Permanent Secretary: Yes,
...........as we know that what we requested is not what we get at the end of
the day so hence we have to submit that and of course we also have to vire from some of these to meet other ..... It is quite a normal thing that happens in
most of the government ministries.
Chairman: The idea for
printing passports – whose idea is this?
Permanent Secretary: The
Immigration Department.
Chairman: I think it is
about time we print some passports here now.
Permanent Secretary: Yes. It is basically the machine. We do have the papers. The papers are there already but it is just
the machine to print the actual passports.
Chairman: I think the
Ministry of Finance would ask for a Mint to print some money.
Chairman: Any more
queries?
Hon Koli: I understand
that one of the Ministers and the Minister for Commerce went for a WTO meeting
in one of the countries overseas, and they did so because we did not comply to pay .... Has this
been sorted out?
Permanent Secretary: We are trying
to but that is the implication that sometimes we do not pay up to some of these
international organizations. We loose up
the whole thing. At the same time we are
members to these organizations and we have our obligations. It does have implications on our image as
well if we do not pay up in time. We are
fully committed to the importance of our membership. On the other hand we are also fully aware of
the fact that we need to fully utilize these organizations to the fullest in
terms of what benefits that we have with them.
Chairman: And when we
are not paying they will simply tell us not to.
Any more queries?
Chairman: This MSG, is an interesting question. Has the Secretariat already been
established? Have we given half a
million to them?
Permanent Secretary: They are
building the building now. The opening
of the building in Port Vila, Vanuatu will be on the 14th of
September.
Chairman: There are no
more questions. Thank you so much for
coming and for your time.
Permanent Secretary: Thank you
Chairman, and members of the Committee.
Chairman: You may now
go in peace, and thank you.