MEMBER of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural Juliet Holness wants greater consultation between the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) Project Management Unit (PMU), implementing state agencies, and MPs to ensure more accountability and reconciliation of funds.

Speaking at a meeting of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday, Holness pointed to issues of proper accounting among some implementing agencies, arguing that if they are unable to properly account for CDF expenditure, then it creates a nightmare for the administrators of the CDF to try to reconcile the funds.“We really need to sit down and look at that three-way connection between the CDF, these agencies – particularly those that do not account well – and the MPs, just to be able to see if there are any gaps,” she stated. The committee was reviewing the Auditor General’s Department’s compliance audit report on the fund for 2016/17 to 2019/20.

Holness also emphasised that a strong push now needs to be made to have constituents fully understand how the CDF operates. “The public needs to appreciate that the entire CDF can’t be used for welfare; the CDF has to be used in a way where there are structured upper- and lower-limit spending on welfare, housing, education. They need to know and understand that as MPs it isn’t our ability to just get up and give anything and any amount that we would like,” she argued.At the same time, she commended the CDF for increasingly implementing strictures to ensure that benefits are applied to the intended constituents: “We as MPs need to ensure that the public understands that it is not free for all.”

Head of the CDF Project Management Unit, Kadesha Campbell, advised that closing out reports on projects are now done to ensure checks and balances, including the reconciliation of the contingency fees which are charged by the implementing agencies. “They tell you whether the project is 100 per cent completed (or) what balance is left on the project, and also on our monthly reports we can track those to say if the contingency fees were used, or they are to be returned to the CDFPMU – a letter would be issued, asking for the return of funds,” she explained.

Permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) Audrey Sewell noted that a dedicated budget officer is to be engaged to address the complexities of reconciliation of funds.Discussions are ongoing with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service to review the policy manual for the CDF, and that moves are now being made to better monitor projects, she said.Campbell, meanwhile, said, ideally, one project officer can adequately serve only six constituencies, based on the nature of the projects. Currently, there are eight project officers overseeing 63 constituencies.Sewell stressed that the unit has been aggressively pursuing consultations – one of the areas of weakness identified in the report – prior to project implementation. “We have taken the report seriously and we have been implementing the recommendations,” she told the committee.Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis noted that since the audit, the CDF unit had moved to make improvements in the areas identified as being at risk, but she was still concerned about the lack of criteria for educational development projects. She said there was also still room for improvement in the monitoring of CDF projects.

Among her key findings, though she said no case of fraud was identified, is that there is a lack of an effective risk management system or fraud prevention plan in the OPM/CDFPMU to prevent, detect, and respond effectively to fraud risks as required by the financial management regulations.The OPM coordinates the management and disbursement of the funds through the CDF for human and infrastructural development at the community level, through various welfare, economic enablement, and infrastructure improvement projects.The OPM/CDFPMU says it has since taken steps to strengthen its risk management system by implementing a risk register, and has included risk management in its 2020/2021 operational plan.