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As we told you last night, the biggest reveal of this case so far is that the Barrow Administration has failed to get any parliamentary approval, prior or after the fact, to account for close to 100 million dollars in public funds. That money has been spent, but no appropriation bills have been passed to account to parliament for it, as is required by the law.

The Financial Secretary made that admission in court yesterday when he was being cross-examined by Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay. This is a significant failure that legitimizes the PUP's case that going to parliament for supplementary appropriation bills, long after public monies have been spent, is a very bad idea. 

We challenged the Financial Secretary on it today, and here's how that conversation went:

Joseph Waight - Financial Secretary
"This is the audit report for the financial year 2012/2013. Indeed - and I used the word slippage - we have not put the supplementary request to the House. To put things in perspective that supplementary 100 million may sound like a lot of money, but it's about 10% of the overall budget for that year. And in fact, when you look at all the supplementaries they list; still it is within 6, 7 or 8% of the total spending over that period. The average budget is about 900 million a year, and this is going back to 2005, or so."

Reporter
"Isn't that trivialising it though, by reducing it to simply 10%?"

Joseph Waight
"No, I mean I'm saying, look, it may sound like a big figure, but when you put it in perspective, it is still a single-digit number. And remember, these supplementaries go back beyond the life of the current government. In fact, the current government is doing that they inherited, so to speak. But nevertheless, indeed, the supplementaries have been late, in being put to the house, and in fact, we have conceded that. It was an age-old practice. If you want to fix it - in fact, if you look, you can that the frequency of the supplementaries are coming faster, indeed a little late. But I remember as a young man, many years ago, we did 10 years' worth of supplementary at one time."

Reporter
"Sir, but, a hundred million dollars not being covered by a supplementary seems like a dangerous thing. Accounting after the fact, it seems like something you would not want to practice. What would have happened had there not been any oversight to catch these 100 million dollars?"

Joseph Waight
"The thing - remember, a lot of it is divided into 3 areas. There is the recurrent, capital 2, capital 3. I really need to delve down to find out where these numbers came from. The problem is that once it drew our attention, we tried to get it corrected, but a key member of my staff got sick. Once we caught up that in fact, that year had not been addressed, we put a team together, but the head of that team got sick. He's been out for some time. We're trying to do it without him, and we will finish it by the end of the year. But remember, the Ministry of Finance is one of the smallest ministries in Government, numbers-wise, with a staff, and we have some big responsibilities. I am not saying this as an excuse, but it is just the reality of the situation."

Reporter
"What is your personal opinion of this continued practice?"

Joseph Waight
"Ideally, you would want to do it in compliance with the regulations, and so, I should also tell you that in fact, while we may be late in submitting. It's a procedural matter, but there is no mention, and I should stress clearly that there is no mention that there is any misappropriation or impropriety with the use of the money."

The Chief Justice has reserved judgment in this case for January 21st of next year.