The Department of Territory and Municipal Services does not have the ability to track overdue invoices according to an official response from Jon Stanhope MLA to Alistair Coe MLA, Shadow Minister for Urban Services.
Mr Coe placed the following questions on the notice paper on 2 April 2009:
Mr Coe: To ask the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services regarding payment of accounts by the Department of Territory and Municipal Services for 2008-09 until 30 December 2008–
(1) What proportion of accounts payable were not paid within 30 days;
(2) What proportion of accounts were not paid within 90 days;
(3) What were the major reasons why accounts were not paid on time;
(4) What actions are you taking to increase the proportion of accounts paid on time?
Mr Stanhope was unable to provide an answer for any of the above questions. The response received by Mr Coe yesterday included the following:
Mr Stanhope: For the financial periods stated, TAMS was operating its own version of ORACLE which has not been configured to produce the requested information concerning the timeliness of accounts payments.
Mr Stanhope has admitted this financial information is important but that it can not be produced for a significant period of time:
Work is currently underway to enable production of the requested information…at the commencement of 2009-2010.
“The response highlights the incompetence of the Stanhope-Gallagher Government to keep track of taxpayers’ money and the Government’s liabilities.”
“If the Government can’t handle basic incomings and outgoings, how can they possibly deliver a responsible budget in this challenging economic environment?”
“Inefficiencies and irresponsibility such as this show why the ACT Government is in such a bad financial position,” Mr Coe said.
