reporting performance of fiji public...

Brown/FRRaG (Financial Reporting, Regulation and Governance) 2009 8:1

Reporting Performance of Fiji Public Sector between the Coups

Alistair M. Brown Curtin University of Technology

Contact Details Alistair M. Brown School of Accounting, Curtin Business School Curtin University of Technology GPO Box U1987 Perth, WA 6845, Australia Email: [email protected] Abstract This paper seeks to examine the reporting performance of the Fiji Islands public sector entities for the period 2001-2005 as evidenced by the tabling of annual reports of Fijian government entities to Fiji’s parliament. A triangulation approach is adopted involving textual analysis of audit reports of the Whole of Government generated by the Office of the Auditor General, descriptive statistical and ANOVA analysis of the generation of annual reports tabled by five types of Fijian public sector entities to parliament, and semi-structured interview analysis of key stakeholder observations of reporting performance of public sector entities in Fiji. The study finds that throughout the five-year time-period, very few public sector entities table an annual report. When annual reports of public sector entities are tabled, many are late or do not contain core financial statements. Further research might examine the leadership qualities of annual report generation rather than merely the filing and timing of reports, a major limitation of this research. While the recommendations made by the paper may improve reporting, the willingness to accept the changes may prove problematic. This study offers a comprehensive account, beyond the descriptive of the reporting performance of Fijian public sector entities over a long period of time. The triangulated research approach offers interpretivist Fijian-contextualised solutions to improve the reporting performance of Fijian public sector reporting. Key words: public sector entities, reporting performance, annual reports Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge the very helpful advice given by the editor and referees.

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Reporting Performance of Fiji Public Sector between the Coups

Introduction

After nearly a century of British colonial rule, Fiji became independent in 1970 adopting

a Westminster system style of democracy, which subsequently became interrupted by two

military coups in 1987 (Ramesh, 2007). The coups were caused by concern by “ethno-

nationalist” factions over a government perceived as dominated by the Indo-Fijian

community (Bainimarama, 2007). A new constitution promulgated in 1990 ensured

native Melanesian control of Fiji but resulted in heavy Indo-Fijian emigration leading to

economic difficulties (CIA, 2001). A new “equitable” constitution was enacted in 1997

(CIA, 2007) and free elections in 1999 resulted in a government led by Indo-Fijian prime

minister Chaudhry (Fiji Turago, 2007).

An attempted civilian-led coup in 2000 was followed by the declaration of martial law

and dissolution of parliament by Bainimarama, commander of the Fiji Military Forces,

with prime minister Qarase subsequently appointed to lead an interim government

(Ramesh, 2007). Parliamentary elections held in 2001 provided Fiji with a democratically

elected government led by prime minister Qarase who was re-elected in 2006 (Fiji

Turago, 2007). In December 2006 he was ousted by a military coup led by Bainimarama,

who initially appointed himself acting president and then was appointed interim prime

minister in 2007 (Buksh, 2007).

The recent disruption to parliamentary democracy in Fiji together with militaristic

solutions to Fiji’s governance issues (Bainimarama, 2007) makes fertile ground for the

study of the reporting performance of Fiji’s public sector entities: the

ministries/departments; statutory authorities; commercial government entities; municipal

councils; and provincial councils. The public sector is the largest employer and spender

in Fiji (PAC, 2001; p. 7) and is responsible for supplying goods and services to its

multiple Fijian stakeholders and constituencies. The public sector is also responsible for

supplying accounts of its activities through the generation of annual reports to its multiple

stakeholders and constituencies (Cameron, 2004; Guthrie, Parker and English, 2003; Coy,

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Fischer and Gordon, 2001) where, following Stanton and Stanton (2002), an annual

report is considered as comprising both descriptive information about the public sector

entity (and its activities) and statutory information of an audited general purpose finance

report (or audited core financial statements).

A prime motivation of the this study, therefore, is to analyse the annual reporting

performance of the whole of Fijian government over the relatively recent period 2001 to

2005, particularly given the aftermath of the coups, and to evaluate whether there are any

significant differences in the generation of annual reports across Fiji public sector entity

type. There are five public sector entity types in Fiji: ministries/departments; statutory

authorities; commercial government entities; municipal councils; and provincial councils.

Given, the subtle differences in their public sector remit, it is important to consider

variations in the reporting performance of these entity types, particularly given the need

by Fiji’s public sector accounting regulators and strategists to improve public sector

performance (OAG, 2006a).

The research question and its justification

This paper examines the reporting performance of Fijian public sector entities between

the last two coups of 2000 and 2006, and poses the following research question:

RQ: What trends can be detected in the reporting performance of the Fijian government

entities over the period 2001 to 2005?

This study is important for a number of reasons. First, it is one of the first papers to offer

a comprehensive account, beyond the descriptive of the reporting performance of Fijian

public sector entities over a long period of time. Whilst an expanding literature has been

written on individual Fijian entities’ accounting (Davie, 1999; 2000; 2004; Lodhia, 2002;

Nandan and Alam, 2005) little research has been conducted on the reporting performance

of Fijian public sector entities in aggregated terms.

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Second, the results of the study set in context the remarks made in a speech to the United

Nations in 2007 by Bainimarama Fiji Military Force’s (FMF) leader who said that the

military conducted the 2006 coup because “Fiji’s overall governance situation had

regressed to a catastrophic level” (Bainimarama, 2007). The study’s evidence of

reporting weaknesses of key public sector entities may help elucidate this perception,

particularly given the FMF’s own reporting performance during this time and the

expected disruption to reporting brought about by the coup’s changes in top level

government offices of Fiji’s public sector entities. The coup periods in Fiji make

reporting performance an important phenomenon to examine because all Fiji’s coups

have been justified by appeals to the greater good, particularly in terms of accountability

(Fraenkel and Firth, 2007).

Normally, in a parliamentary democracy, the military operates under civilian authorities so that its coercive power is manageable and accountable. A military with special interventionist powers may not be good for stability and democracy. The role of the military is one of the dilemmas of post-colonial militaries, in which there have been difficulties in making it align with and accountable to civilian rule. This dilemma is partly historical because, since the colonial and post-colonial period, many post-colonial militaries have been used as active components of political governance by colonial and post-colonial élites. During the colonial days, as we have seen in the case of Fiji, the role of the military was to help maintain internal security. The Fiji military was groomed as part of the Fijian élite power structure, and its intervention in 1987 on behalf of Fijian nationalism was a violent manifestation of this (Ratuva, 2007; p. 43).

The nature of the military’s public relations exercises after the 1987 coups, according to

Ratuva (2007), was the ‘civilianization’ of the military and the militarization of Fijian

civilian life where senior officers were recruited into senior civil service positions and

many civilians were absorbed into the military, where they held military rank. Tension

between the government and the military preceding the 2006 election resulted in

sustained criticism by the military’s pre-election campaign against the government,

notably on the performance of politicians and public servants.

Third, this paper offers some recommendations on improving the reporting performance

of Fiji’s public sector entities. While Chand and White (2007) endorsement of an Asian

Development Bank recommendation to set up an independent oversight body to review

government financial reports, might prove helpful for reporting improvements, this paper

suggests the raising of extant Fijian accounting leadership exemplars as a way to improve

government financial reports may prove particularly useful.

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In investigating the role and importance of the annual report as a source of public sector

information, Ryan and Mack (2007) found that in an Australian public sector context, the

annual report was an important source of information about public sector entities but was

not as an important source of information as personal contact with the entity. Ryan and

Mack (2007) also found that the annual report was not regarded as equally important

across all public sector entity types: government owned corporation stakeholders and

municipal government authority stakeholders both rated the annual report as a very

important source of information, while government department stakeholders rated the

annual report as an important, rather than very important, source of information.

There are compelling reasons why an annual report for a Fijian government entity is

important. First, the annual report allows a government entity to discharge “a wide range

of summarized relevant information in a single document” (Coy et al. 2001) to a wide

array of stakeholders. Here, the annual report provides a means for stakeholders to gauge

whether the objectives of the government entity are being achieved. Second, the annual

report is an important source of qualitative and quantitative information about an entity

Swanepoel & Smit (2003), the “main disclosure vehicle” (Marston & Shrives, 1991, p.

196), “a useful reference point” (Parker, 1982, p. 285) and “a mass communication

medium” (Parker, 1982, p. 279).

The remaining discussion in the paper is divided into four sections. The next section

theorises Fiji’s public sector reporting based on reporting models in a Pacific Island

Country (PIC) context. The next section then explains the research methods of the paper.

A mixed methodology is presented. Textual analysis of the Office of the Auditor

General’s auditor reports for the Whole of Government, statistical analysis of annual

report generation by public sector entities, and semi-structured analysis of key public

sector respondents are used to gather insights of the reporting performance of public

sector entities. This is followed by the results of the study in two phases. The final section

then presents the paper’s conclusion about the pattern of Fijian public sector reporting

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over a five-year time period and provides recommendations to improve government

reporting in Fiji.

Fijian Reporting

In recent times, there has been a considerable increase in theoretically oriented work with

a variety of research methods on accounting in the Pacific Island Country (PIC) region

comprising the countries of Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon

Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Such work includes environmental perspectives of

Fijian accounting (Lodhia, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002), a cultural theory and

ethnography of economic and political reforms in the Central Pacific Republic of Kiribati

(Dixon, 2004), a theory on the aesthetics of ambiguities in accounting of a Fijian entity

(Davie, 1999), a critical theory of British imperialistic influence on Fijian accounting

(Davie, 2000), a total quality management implementation appraisal of a Fijian public

sector entity (Sharma and Hoque, 2002), a critical perspective of post-colonial accounting

in a Fijian context (Alam, Lawrence and Nandan, 2004), a critical theory of accounting

and reform initiatives of a Fijian state owned enterprise (Davie, 2004), a structuration

theory of changes in management control systems in a Fijian development bank (Nandan

and Alam, 2004), a comparative analysis of the same Fijian development bank (Irvine

and Deo, 2006), a discourse on Fijian race and accounting in a colonial context (Nandan

and Alan, 2005), a moral-ethical theory of stakeholder importance in PIC (Brown, Tower

and Taplin, 2004a), and a critical perspective of the influence of globalization and

convergence of accounting standards in Fiji (Chand and White, 2007).

But none of these dense works of micro-situations provides a comprehensive analysis of

the more prosaic issues of the extant reporting performance of Fijian government entities,

which in the past (1997-1999) have produced low levels of annual reports (Brown and

Tower, 2002). Thus, while it appears possible to explicate a theory of aesthetics of

ambiguity on the basis of a report generated by an entity (Davie, 1999), it is a little more

problematic to invoke such a theory when an entity does not report. And while it is

possible to make inferences about British imperialistic influences on Fijian accounting

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when text is presented for deconstruction, it becomes more difficult to make inferences

about imperialism when text is absent.

The matter of non-reporting by entities the PIC region was examined by Brown and

Tower (2002) who empirically classified PIC entities’1 reporting as either Traditional

(little written reporting but some oral reporting), Western-Narrow (written financial

reporting) or Western-Broad (written financial and non-financial reporting). This,

however, was conducted in a time period (1997-1999) where Fijian and other PIC-

government reporting was very much set in the Traditional Reporting model pattern.

Correspondence from Fiji government ministers in 1999-2000 outlined the reasons for

the issue of non- or late government reporting. These reasons may be summarised on the

basis of politics,

I refer to your letter of 25/6/00 requesting our annual report for the financial year 1999 and regret to advise that this report is yet to be prepared and published. It is likely that this will remain pending for sometime given the current situation in the country (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2000).

resources,

Enclosed is our Annual Report for 1994. Your request has been noted and we will be forwarding a copy to you as they are printed (Ministry of Works and Energy, 1999).

or custom

I must be frank with you. The Ministry of Finance has never produced any Financial Report for the last years, and it has been a coincidence that you are now asking for a copy of our 1999 Annual Report. We are in the process of producing our first Annual Report this year, i.e. the 1999 Annual Report and it should be ready by early October 2000. The non-production of the Ministry’s Annual Report does not mean that we are not producing any annual report at all. The Ministry has been producing the Report on Accounts and Finance of the Whole of Government on an annual basis and is normally tabled in Parliament by the Minister for Finance in October (Ministry of Finance, 2000).

These non- or late reporting performances, which are characteristics of the Traditional

Reporting model, are also acknowledged in a Fijian public sector context by the Office of

Auditor General (OAG, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC,

1 These entities included profit-making, not-for-profit, government and partial government entities.

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2001), the latter of which noted that many ministries and government departments took

no corrective action on reporting matters raised by the OAG (PAC, 2001, p. 4),

“blatantly” disregarded instructions and procedures laid down by the Finance Act and

PSC Act (p. 4), did not provide reader friendly accounts (p. 6) and made little effort to

increase the pool of qualified accounting officers (p. 7).

But much has changed since Fiji’s third coup in 2000. Fiji possesses wide-ranging

tertiary accounting and commercial institutions (University of South Pacific, 2008; Fiji

Institute of Technology, 2008), a growing number of qualified, professional accountants

and expanding professional accounting membership (Fiji Institute of Accountants, 2008),

a presence of Big 4 and non-Big 4 auditing firms, a plethora of allegedly well-intentioned

international non-profit accounting organizations willing to help government entities out

on accounting matters, and a well established Office of the Auditor General which, at least

once a year, must inspect, audit and report to Parliament on the State’s public accounts and

on the State’s control and transactions of public money and property. The Constitution

Amendment Act 1997 (s. 167(7), Audit Act (Cap 70)) and the Finance (Control and

Management) Act (FMA) 2004 empowers the Auditor General to audit all public sector

entities; ministries/departments; statutory authorities (OAG, 2003g; OAG, 2003l; OAG,

2004i; OAG, 2005h); government commercial entities (OAG, 2003a, pp. 68-87);

municipal councils (OAG, 2003h; OAG, 2004g; OAG, 2005g); and provincial councils

(OAG, 2003i; OAG, 2004h).

All public sector entities, with the exception of the Unit Trust of Fiji, have a 31

December financial year-end. The Constitution, Audit Act and FMA require the Auditor

General to submit audit reports of public sector entities to Parliament within 9 months of

the end of the financial year, and special investigation reports within 6 months of their

completion. Statutory authorities and provincial councils are placed with their line

ministries or where they obtain their budgets. Commercial government entities include

government commercial companies (GCC), commercial statutory authorities (CSA) and

agencies specified in the FMA as off-budget state entities (OBSE).

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Research design and methodology

In terms of the research design, data sources include OAG audit reports, public sector

entities’ annual reports as well as semi-structured interviews with public sector stakeholders.

The non-interview data was used as part of the triangulation process to provide evidence of

reporting performance of Fijian public sector entities. This entailed both textual analysis of

audit reports of the Whole of Government generated by the Office of the Auditor General

that were, tabled to parliament for the operational years covering 2001-2005, in order to

glean insights of the general terrain of reporting performance that might impact on individual

public sector entity reporting performances; descriptive statistical and ANOVA analysis of

the generation of annual reports prepared by five types of Fijian public sector entities over

the same time period; and semi-structured interview analysis of stakeholder observations of

reporting performance of public sector entities in Fiji.

Phase 1

Audit reports of the Whole of Government of the Fiji Islands’ accounts and finances that

were submitted to parliament covering the reporting performance of the Whole of

Government operations for the study period 2001-2005 were examined for commentary

on actual reporting generation issues. For each year, Reports of the Auditor General of

the Republic of the Fiji Islands would be submitted by the OAG by sector categories:

general administrative, economic, social services and infrastructure. For some years, the

OAG would produce special audit reports on specific public sector entities.

Phase 2

Annual reports of public sector entities that were submitted to parliament for 2001-2005

inclusive were also examined. The names of the sample of 150 public sector entities were

gleaned from the audit reports made by the Office of the Auditor General over the five-

year study period (OAG, 2001a; OAG, 2002a; OAG, 2003a; OAG, 2004a; OAG, 2005a;

OAG, 2006a) and the copies of the hard copy reports were gathered from the offices of

the individual public sector entity and the government printing office. The final sample

set comprised 54 ministries/departments; 38 statutory authorities; 33 commercial

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government entities, 12 municipal authorities; and 13 provincial councils. Using the

records of the OAG, the sample of 150 entities appeared to approximate the population of

Fijian public sector entities. Some of the names of the public entities changed over time

but, in accordance with the way the OAG was able to audit each of the 150 entities over

the five-year period, each entity’s reporting performance was able to be tracked over the

same period. A check list of all the annual reports submitted to parliament for the period

2003-2005 was gathered from The Report for the Legislative Department 2003-2005

(Legislative Department, 2006; Appendix V, pp. xx-xxvi) and a further check list of all

the annual reports submitted to parliament for the period 2001-2002 was gathered from

the Parliament of the Republic of Fiji Islands (Parliament House, 2004; Appendix 12, pp.

97-99).

Brown and Tower (2002) used six reporting criteria to assess PIC entities’ reporting

performance: the filing of a general purpose annual report; timeliness of the report; level

of aggregated disclosures; presence of core statement accounts; financial related

accounting disclosures; non-financial related accounting disclosures. However, they

found very low levels of filing (17%). The six criteria were used to scrutinize which of

three reporting models – Traditional, Western-narrow and Western-broad – caught the

basis of accounting for Pacific Island Countries’ entities. For the purposes of this paper’s

research question, a narrower focus is made to concentrate on Brown and Tower’s (2002)

criteria on filing, timing and core financial statements. This focus enables conclusions to

be made about a facet of reporting that takes into account the customary, political and

resource sensitivities of a developing country in what has now become to be known as

the Traditional Reporting milieu (Brown and Tower, 2002; Brown, Tower and Taplin,

2004a; 2004b). The other criteria used by Brown and Tower (2002) – level of aggregated

disclosures, financial related accounting disclosures and non-financial related accounting

disclosures – used in the past to assess a country’s reporting model falls outside the scope

of this study’s research question.

In terms of scoring, a public sector entity that tabled at least one annual report (no matter

how old the annual report submission) to parliament for a particular year received a score

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of ‘1’; an entity that did not submit a report to parliament received a score of ‘0’. For the

five-year study period, the scores for each of the five years were aggregated to determine

an aggregated score out of 5.

A weighted means of the generation of annual reports by public sector entities was

calculated taking into consideration the elements of filing, timeliness and core financial

statements. . Here, a score of ‘3’ represented a timely (tabled within one year of balance

date) annual report that included audited core-financial statements; a score of ’2’

represented a timely annual report that included unaudited core-financial statements; a

score of ‘1’represented a timely annual report without core-financial statements; and a

score of ‘0’ if the annual report was not submitted within a year. It was possible,

therefore, for an entity to secure a maximum score of 15 over the study period.

Phase 3

Semi-structured interviews of key respondents were used as part of a triangulation

research process to provide additional insights for Phases 1 and 2. Rather than a stand

alone phase, the findings of Phase 3 were included in the results section of both Phase 1

and 2. In contrast to the objectivist epistemologies and positivist–methodologies of

Phases 1 and 2, Phase 3 adopted an interpretivist research paradigm approach to

acknowledge and accept respondents’ interpretations of reality as an integral part of that

reality. Under the interpretivist world-view individual perspectives are valued and the

subjective experience and behaviour of the whole person, including the influences

brought to bear upon that behaviour by dynamic interaction with the situation or

environment, are considered important (O’Donoghue, 2007).

This approach is appropriate for Phase 3 of this study because the area of reasoning about

Fijian file reporting, timeliness and core financial statements is largely unexplored and

requires a deep small-scale research approach that allows for an exploration of how the

actions of report filing were interpreted. This phase is sensitive to the lived “realities” of

Fijian public sector stakeholders and how those realities are perceived by them and others

close to that process and how those perspectives changed over time. The interpretivist

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world-view is therefore suited to this phase because of both the context and the purpose

of this study. Also, the ontological and epistemological assumptions that are made in this

phase (that multiple realities exist and that data gathered during the study reflects both the

researcher’s and the research participants’ mutual constructions) are interpretivist

assumptions. The phase ultimately provides an interpretivist portrayal of the studied

world which supplements the positivist findings of Phases 1 and 2. It is important to note

that the overall aim of this phase was to generate additional insights from participant’s

experience in the public sector about the trends of the reporting performance of the Fijian

government entities over the period 2001 to 2005. The insights were not used to generate

new theory as in grounded theory.

Four respondents from the public sector were asked to explain the reasons for the

reporting performance of their government institution. The semi-structured interviews

were conducted in Suva, Fiji in October 2007. The respondents were drawn from senior

government levels, and were involved in planning, consultation, operations, accounting

and audit. The purpose of interviewing these respondents was to understand some of the

terrain of government accounting in Fiji. The semi-structured interviews were designed to

provide background information about the interviewees’ attitudes towards government

accounting. Information was also collected on factors influencing public accounting’s

current form, and its perceived usefulness to parliamentarians and stakeholders.

The following three interrelated guiding questions were developed from the central

research aim:

Guiding question 1: What trends or patterns, if any, did respondents detect in

the reporting performance of the Fijian pubic sector over the period 2001 to

2005?

Guiding question 2: What factors do respondents identify as assisting or

hampering public sector entities’ ability to generate annual reports in this

time period?

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Guiding question 3: How do respondents explain the past and present lack of

reporting by Fijian government entities?

O’Donoghue (2007) argues that in an interpretivist study the issues which are

germane are those which are issues for the participants being investigated, rather

than those which might exist from the outset as problems in the mind of the

researcher. It was with this in mind that the guiding questions changed slightly

during the research project. An earlier version of the second guiding question sought

to investigate whether respondents were helped or hampered in generating annual

reports in their jobs but this path of inquiry changed when it became clear that while

all the respondents in the study considered the role of reporting to be vital to

accountability, the real issues that were of concern were far more immediate and

centred around surviving their days in their respective reporting role. As a result, the

second guiding question changed to one about ‘reporting survival’ when it became

clear that this was the process that most concerned respondents in ‘their time’ in the

reporting role.

Prior to interviews, a signed ethics form from the author’s university was needed to

undertake research as the research itself was deemed ‘minimal risk’- the level of risk

accepted in everyday life. In accordance with the ethics form, the author took care that

recruitment of participants did not involve coercion. Participation was voluntary and the

researcher had authorised access to the contact details of participants in accordance with

the NHMRC National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans

(2007). Respondent-participants signed a consent form and were given an information

sheet. Participation was completely anonymous, with no personal details recorded. The

length of the interviews lasted an average length of 60 min. For reasons of cultural

sensitivity, interviews were not taped, but each respondent-participant gave the researcher

permission to take notes. These hand-written notes were later transcribed.

Four interviews were conducted with respondents on the issue of reporting performance

of the Fijian public sector: Respondent 1, a retired senior army officer and senior

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permanent secretary with extensive and wide-ranging senior departmental ministerial

experience both before and during some of the study period under consideration;

Respondent 2, a middle-management officer with one of the government departments

during the study period. As revealed in the discussion of the results that follow, both

Respondents 1 and 2 offered substantial insights about Phase 1 of the project.

Respondent 3 was a senior executive officer in a commercial government entity that

successfully produced unqualified annual reports before, during and after the time period

in question, and Respondent 4 was a senior level accountant of a municipal government

entity. Both these respondents presented keen insights into Phase 2 of the project.

Discussion of results

The results of the reporting performance of Fiji public sector entities are presented in

three phases. Phase 1 provides a backdrop to the reporting performance of Fijian public

sector entities by examining the OAG’s analysis of reporting by the Whole of

Government. Phase 2 provides an analysis of the output of annual reports by five types of

public sector entities, and Phase 3 reveals the responses of four semi-structured

interviews on the topic of public sector reporting, which are incorporated in the

discussion of Phases 1 and 2.

Phase 1 Whole of Government accounts

For each of the years covering the period 2001-2005, the OAG tabled to parliament audit

reports of the Whole of Government accounts on a timely basis. Although the Whole of

Government’s 2001 accounts were unqualified and deemed faithfully and properly kept

(OAG, 2002a; OAG, 2002b; OAG, 2002c; OAG, 2002d; OAG, 2002e; OAG, 2002f;

OAG, 2002g), the OAG found enormous problems in the Whole of Government’s

general ledger system which impeded the generation of annual reports by individual

public sector entities to the extent that annual reports for most of the ministries and

departments were not submitted to the Public Service Commission for tabling before

Parliament (OAG, 2002b):

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There is an urgent need for the Ministry of Finance to change its General Ledger System as early as 2003 to ensure that reliable and credible accounting information is produced. The continuing delay the government has made its compilation and the audit of the Accounts and Finance of government a very complicated process (OAG, 2002a; p. v).

The Whole of Government’s 2002 accounts were also unqualified (OAG, 2003a; OAG,

2003b; OAG, 2003c; OAG, 2003d; OAG, 2003e; OAG, 2003f; OAG, 2003g; OAG,

2003h; OAG, 2003i; OAG, 2003j; OAG, 2003k) with the OAG (2003a) again

emphasising that the Ministry of Finance and other ministries and departments had not

maintained their ledgers satisfactorily due to breakdowns of the general ledger system.

As a result, the ledgers have been riddled with errors and expenditures have been charged haphazardly to the accounts. Numerous misallocations were noted and corrected during the course of the audit while some were too late to be adjusted (OAG, 2003a, p. i)

The following year, the Whole of Government 2003 accounts were qualified (OAG,

2004a; OAG, 2004b; OAG, 2004c; OAG, 2004d; OAG, 2004e; OAG, 2004f). An amount

of $48,469,250 in respect of trust moneys was not appropriately supported by Cash at

Bank (OAG, 2004a) and the inability by Ministry of Finance to furnish satisfactory

explanations on balances of four accounts totalling $12,467,187 reflected as Unpresented

Cheques in Appendix 3: Statement of Cash and Bank Balance of the Accounts and

Finance Report (OAG, 2004a).

The 2004 Whole of Government accounts were also qualified (OAG, 2005a; OAG,

2005b; OAG, 2005c; OAG, 2005d; OAG, 2005e; OAG, 2005f; OAG, 2005g; OAG,

2005h; OAG, 2005i; OAG, 2005j) because the Consolidated Trust Fund, amounting to

$50,339,342, again not being supported by Cash at Bank and because of a lack of

substantiation of the correctness of income tax and VAT revenues totalling $727.9

million collected by the Fiji Islands Revenue & Customs Authority (FIRCA)

(representing 45% of the Government’s total revenue in 2004).

Yet again, the OAG (2005a) noted that most ministries and departments did not maintain

ledgers of their own and relied solely on the general ledger system maintained by the

Ministry of Finance.

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It is therefore necessary for Ministries and Departments to continue to maintain their own ledgers to ensure that their accounts are produced on time. The monthly reconciliations should attempt to resolve any differences in their own ledgers and the Ministry of Finance ledgers. The inadequate General Ledger system resulted in numerous cases of mispostings and audit could not establish whether the Ministry of Finance or the Ministries and Departments were directly responsible. These incorrect entries are then too late to be adjusted and carried over the years. There were some instances of balances that were carried over in the accounts from the reduction of the number of bank accounts from 6 to 2 which resulted in a lot of wrong entries in the accounts. The Ministry of Finance did not take measures to ensure that entries relating to the bank accounts were properly closed for each fund before the changeover (OAG, 2005a, p. iv).

The OAG (2005a) also suggested that the poor record-keeping by ministries and

departments warranted legislative changes.

The maintenance of records continues to be a problem. Despite the prevalence of the issue in last years report, there does not seem to be any improvements. Unless legislation and regulations are put in place to strengthen laws governing improper recordkeeping, and which specifies penalties for improper recordkeeping or missing records, Ministries and Departments will not improve this important aspect of their work and those directly involved will not be obliged to be responsible for the proper maintenance of records (OAG, 2005a).

For the final year of the time period of the study, the Whole of Government 2005

accounts were again qualified (OAG, 2006a; OAG, 2006b; OAG, 2006c; OAG, 2006d;

OAG, 2006e; OAG, 2006f). Again, trust money had not been accounted for separately

from public money and had not been kept in a separate bank account contrary to section

25 of the FMA (2004); an amount of $48,424,397 in respect of trust money was not

supported by cash at bank. FIRCA had for the second year denied the Office of the

Auditor General access to taxpayer records. The correctness of the income and company

taxes and VAT revenues collected by FIRCA in the Whole of Government financial

statements therefore could not be verified. And again, the Ministry of Finance records

and ledgers on which the Whole of Government financial statements were prepared did

not reconcile with the various ministries/departments ledger balances for the year ended

31 December 2005.

It would appear, therefore, that a distinct pattern of reporting emerges for the Whole of

Government of Fiji. In the first two years of the study period (2001-2002) the Whole of

Government had unqualified accounts but with matters that required attention,

particularly the general ledger system. In the following three years (2003-2005), the

Whole of Government generated qualified accounts, not only due to the break down of

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the general ledger system but also to unaccounted trust funds and unverified tax

collections. Against this reporting backdrop, all the OAG audit reports for the study

period provided examples of missing funds, inadequate internal control systems and poor

debt collection systems across all types of public sector entities.

Additional insights were provided by Respondents 1 and 2 for the interview phase.

Respondent 1 was well aware of the reporting difficulties of the Fijian public sector

entities between the years 2001-2005, having worked for many ministries and

departments at senior levels both before and during the study period. According to

Respondent 1, there was an historical basis for the lack of annual reports generated by the

public service entities that stemmed from both a lack of leadership and discipline by

indigenous Fijians. Democracy, according to Respondent 1, came far too early for Fijian

indigenous people with the abolition, in 1967, of the Fijian Regulation. The removal of

the Fijian Regulation meant that leadership of the Great Council of Chiefs and provincial

and village chieftainships were weakened immediately which, in turn, destroyed

“traditional village democracy” and “smashed protocols”. “Commoners” rather than

“chiefs in their own right” got to power without the “traditional ideals of leadership”

which considered the social fabric of all people, in particular ensuring that every villager

would have the skills of planting root crops, vegetables and fruit trees, as well as

maintaining food security and health, good peers, stable sources of counsel, adequate

schooling, and a home. The breakdown of “traditional leadership” also meant that many

young indigenous Fijians were leaving the islands, residing in squatters’ settlements, and

confronting “all the social problems of squatter settlements: broken marriages, no good

peers, no stable source of counsel, leaving school early, leaving home ...”

The weakening of traditional patterns of leadership meant that commoners, without the

ideals of traditional support for their fellow inhabitants, were able to reach relatively high

positions both in the military and public service without the commitment to service that

previous generations of leaders may have been instilled with. This lack of service led to

inadequate preparation of the reporting that was needed by public sector entities. One

solution to overcome the problem of “poor” accounting leadership, according to

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Respondent 3, was to encourage youngsters to join the military and improve their

leadership skills which could then be used later on in the public service.

Respondent 2 also believed that there was a lack of discipline and leadership amongst

Fijians but that this was not confined to indigenous Fijians. Many Indo-Fijians who had

senior posts in public sector entities were not considered “leadership material” by

indigenous Fijians working at relatively less senior levels who thus became “wary of

them”. A lack of respect for public sector leaders and a fear of the Auditor General’s

Office meant that the attitude towards reporting was based on a “culture of fear” and

“low self-esteem at work”. There was no motivation at lower levels of management to

report. Annual reports were really the domain of middle managers who were generally

“inexperienced and unqualified”. There was a lot of “management laxity”, “no

motivation at lower levels” and “no targets” in ensuring timely annual reports were

produced

Phase 2 Annual Reports

One–way ANOVA tests were constructed to evaluate whether there were any statistical

differences in the means of the generation of annual reports (unweighted) across the

categorical variable of public sector entity type. Table 2 below shows the results of

annual reports tabled to parliament by five Fijian public sector entity types

(ministries/departments; statutory authorities; commercial government entities; municipal

councils; and provincial councils) over the period 2001-2005. As indicated in Table 1,

there was a highly significant difference (p-value 0.000) for the mean of annual report

generation across public sector entity types.

Municipal councils generated most annual reports over the five-year period (a mean of

2.58 annual reports over five years), but not one provincial council presented an annual

report to parliament at all over the same time period. There was also a low level of annual

report production by statutory authorities with less than one annual report (mean of 0.79)

produced over the five-year period. The means for ministries/departments (mean of 1.81)

and commercial government bodies (mean of 1.88) were almost identical. The overall

18


mean of 1.43 annual reports for all 150 public sector entities suggests there were

difficulties in generating annual reports in the time period. It should also be noted that

many public sector entities produced very late annual reports.

Table 1: Comparison of unweighted means of generation of annual reports by public sector entity type 2001-2005

N Entity means Standard Deviation

ANOVA

F Sig. (p-value) Five public sector entity types: 1. Ministries/Departments 54 1.81 1.73 2. Statutory Authorities 38 0.79 1.23 3. Commercial government entities 33 1.88 1.69 4. Municipal Councils 12 2.58 1.24 5. Provincial Councils 13 0.00 0.00 Total 150 1.43 1.63 8.139 0.000

Legend: R Square .183 Adjusted R-Square .161

One–way ANOVA tests were also constructed to evaluate whether there was any

statistical differences in means of the generation of annual reports (weighted) across the

categorical variable of public sector entity type. Table 2 below shows the results of

annual reports (weighted) tabled to parliament by the five Fijian public sector entity types

(ministries/departments; statutory authorities; commercially run state enterprises;

municipal councils; and provincial councils) over the period 2001-2005. Table 2 shows

there was a highly significant difference (p-value 0.000) for the mean of annual report

generation across the public sector entity types.

Again, municipal councils had the highest mean of (weighted) annual reports over the

five-year period (a weighted mean score of 10.33 over five years); provincial councils

had the lowest mean (0.00) over the same time period. There was a low level of weighted

annual report production by statutory authorities (mean of 3.68) over the five-year period.

The weighted mean for ministries/departments (mean of 4.19) was much lower than for

commercial government bodies (mean of 8.21). The overall mean of 5.07 annual reports

for all 150 public sector entities suggests there were difficulties in generating annual

reports that included core financial statements and that were timely.

19


Table 2: Comparison of weighted means of generation of annual reports by public sector entity type 2001-2005

N Entity means Standard Deviation

ANOVA

F Sig. (p-value) Five public sector entity types: 1. Ministries/Departments 54 4.19 4.91 2. Statutory Authorities 38 3.68 5.99 3. Commercial government entities 33 8.21 8.41 4. Municipal Councils 12 10.33 5.28 5. Provincial Councils 13 0.00 0.00 Total 150 5.07 6.49 7.766 0.000

Legend: R Square .176 Adjusted R-Square .154

In explaining why there was a difference in reporting level between the five groups of the

public sector entities, findings from Phase 3 of this study provided important insights.

Respondent 3 did not want to be drawn on the general reporting performance of Fiji’s

public sector entities over the period 2001-2006 – “perhaps they have a different set of

priorities” - but provided reasons for the reporting success of Respondent 3’s institution

(with a relatively high mean for annual report generation) in a group that had a relatively

much lower mean for annual report generation. Respondent 3 said that the accounting

staff knew the deadline for meeting the annual report submission to be tabled to

parliament and then worked backwards to ensure they met the deadlines for the

intermediate steps towards annual report completion. There was never a question of the

institution not completing an annual report on time. Respondent 3’s institution had

regularly been nominated for best public sector annual report award run by the South

Pacific Stock Exchange. Although this was not considered as critical, it was “nice” to be

recognized as the best preparer of public sector annual reports amongst the reporting

community.

Voluntarily, Respondent 3’s institution placed its annual reports and quarterly reports on

the web site in order to facilitate offsite monitoring. Respondent 3 thought this was very

important because by opening up the institution’s reporting to the world at large, it

received constructive feedback on how to improve its reporting. Indeed, Respondent 3

20


provided examples of how other institutions provided key online disclosure statements on

the web in the form of a three-page template showing profitability, asset quality, credit

exposure concentrations and exposures, summarized balance sheet and income statement,

and independent audit report. This was done so that customers and potential customers

could not only gather information about the institution’s financial condition but could

also differentiate the performance of regulated financial institutions from unregulated

ones.

The staff within Respondent 3’s entity had strong accounting backgrounds both in terms

of academic qualifications (University of South Pacific accounting and commerce

degrees and sometimes postgraduate degrees from overseas) and links with the Fiji

Institute of Accountants and overseas Big 4 accountants based in Suva. Respondent 3’s

institution saw New Zealand’s approach to public sector reporting as “the leading light in

the field” and wanted to emulate it. It also wanted to ensure it was IFRS-compliant. There

was a sense that international perceptions were important to Respondent 3 and that it was

important for this Fijian institution to remain the “reporting leader” of the Pacific Island

Countries.

Respondent 4 said his institution’s late tabling of the annual report to parliament arose

because of the heavy workload of the Office of the Auditor General which was deluged

with auditing of most public sector entities. According to Respondent 4, it might take the

OAG about two years to audit the financial statements, and there was a perception that

the qualified opinions were based on opinions that were outside the experience of the

OAG. In addition, the late tabling to parliament could also be put down to the

parliamentary process being slowed down by the after-effects of the 2000 coup.

Conclusion

As always there are inherent assumptions and limitations embedded in a study such as

this. The paper assumes the annual report is a relevant form of mass communication

accessible to the general public. However, there are impediments in accessing the reports;

Fijian public sector entities are unlikely to hold large stock piles of reports for a non-

21


English speaking stakeholder readership (English is the official business language, but

many Fijian stakeholders may only be able to read or speak Fijian) and while it is

possible to purchase copies of available reports at the government printing office, the sum

required may fall outside the means of many Fijian stakeholders. Nevertheless, the annual

report represents one of the few disclosure vehicles offering summarized, relevant

information about public sector entities that can be accessed should the information in

English be needed.

Additionally, although the names of municipal councils and provincial councils did not

change over the five-year period of study, the names of some of the

ministries/departments, statutory authorities and commercial government entities did

because of slight differences in portfolios over the years. Despite minor changes in

portfolios, each of these entities retained their core activities over the five years of the

study period. This assumption was in accord with the OAG, which in comparing and

contrasting their audit performances of these entities over the 2001-2005 period also

assumed that each entity retained its core activities.

Despite the above assumptions and limitations, the results of the study showed that the

OAG audit reports for the Whole of Government accounts across the five-year study

period (2001-2005) showed Fiji’s public sector was beset by reporting difficulties. The

Whole of Government of Fiji Islands accounts from the period from 2003-2005 were

qualified. The breakdown in the general ledger system, which was also recognized in the

OAG audit reports of the unqualified years of 2001-2002 seems to have arisen from a

break down in procedures and processes, a lack of accounting expertise, and a reliance on

the Ministry of Finance’s systems rather than from a lack of financial resources. The

Ministry of Finance itself rarely produced an annual report.

Most public sector entities did not table annual reports to parliament over the 2001-2005

period on a timely basis, and many annual reports which were generated did not contain

core financial statements or were qualified. Not one provincial council produced an

annual report over the five-year period and statutory authorities, which produced, on

22


average, less than one annual report over the entire time period, appear to fill the

Traditional reporting tag. Insights from interviews suggested that the lack of reporting

may have resulted from a lack of leadership or discipline.

There were certain types of public sector entities that produced relatively more annual

reports over the five-year time period and clearly exceeded the overall mean. In the

unweighted measure of annual report production, municipal councils generated the most

annual reports over the five-year period. However, nearly all municipal council reports

were qualified. In the weighted measure of tabling annual reports, municipal councils

secured the highest mean generation of reports with commercial government entities

securing the second highest mean. Some of these latter entities, including government

commercial companies (GCC), commercial statutory authorities (CSA) and off-budget

statutory entities (OBSE), tabled annual reports to parliament replete with timely,

unqualified, independently audited financial statements.

It is unlikely that the reporting performance of public sector entities, by itself, triggered

impetus for the execution of the 2006 coup – although the leader of this fourth recent

coup, Bainimarama, the commander of the FMF, did state that one of the motivations was

that Fiji’s governance was “catastrophic” (Bainimarama, 2007) - but it is also unlikely

Fiji’s public sector reporting performance will be enhanced by the FMF given its past

reporting performance. During the 2001-2005 time period of the study, the FMF never

tabled an annual report to parliament.

What appears more likely to improve public sector reporting performance is both a return

to democracy and the will of parliament to legislate in more detail for timely audited

financial annual reports. The call for greater legislation has come from the OAG (2005a).

There also appears internal leadership skills within the Fijian reporting community that

could greatly bolster the reporting performance of public sector accounting. One level of

leader emanates from the OAG which has a vast Fijian experience in both auditing and

reporting (the OAG produced its own timely audited and unqualified annual reports

consistently over the five-year period). The OAG has suggested the introduction of an

23


audit committee on each individual public sector entity. According to the OAG, the

primary role of audit committee is to improve financial reporting by overseeing the

financial reporting process, audit functions and internal controls. The OAG suggests that

the inclusion of some stakeholders from the private sector in such a committee would

strengthen and maintain an appropriate control culture (OAG, 2003).

Another leadership group rests in those Fijian public sector entities that consistently

produce timely annual reports. Respondents 1 and 2 of the semi-structured interview

phase lamented the lack of leadership in the Fiji Islands but responses from Respondent 3

suggests that a culture of meeting annual report deadlines, understanding and taking up

local and external community expectations, embracing online technologies and hiring

locally qualified accounting staff would appear to offer the necessary leadership qualities

to help boost generation of annual reports. Clearly, future research might further explore

this nexus between improved leadership and improved annual report generation.

Further research might also consider gleaning further insights from a greater array of

stakeholders about the reporting trends of Fijian public sector entities for the period after

the fourth coup which has witnessed many changes in senior government posts under

military rule, the fragility of parliamentary rule, the circumspectness of foreign

investment, the condemnation of the international community and the depreciation of the

Fijian dollar. Further research might also focus on the stakeholder perceptions of the lack

of reporting by the Fijian government, particularly from rural outposts where many

islanders and villagers rely on timely reporting to make key decisions.

24


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