Premier Veo clarifies why WPG disqualified from PCDF
By Alfred Pagepitu
The Western Province Premier, Hon. Billy Veo, has clarified the disqualification of the Western Provincial Government from the Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF) for the second time.
Premier Veo made this clarification in his opening speech of the assembly meeting to deliberate on the draft budget estimate for 2025/2026 yesterday at the Imagination Island resort in Gizo.
“It is the ACCRA Government that, since taking office in early 2023, made a call to halve the Western Provincial Investment Corporation (WPIC) financial statement from the 2019-2020 financial year up to 2023-2024 by compiling and submitting it to the Office of the Auditor General,” Veo said.
Listen to Premier Veo clarifying the process below
He added previous governments had failed to comply with this, and his government was now cleaning up what should have been done previously but was never completed due to a lack of political will.
Veo noted that it was only since the 2021-2022 PCDF assessment that the WPIC and the WPG consultation of financial statement had become a criterion under Minimum Qualifying Condition 4 (MQC4), which was why they failed in the last two assessments.
“If this criterion had been applied previously, WPG would have already failed in numerous previous provincial assessments. We also noted that, regardless of which government assumed power in 2023, WPG would still have failed the PCDF assessment for the fiscal years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023,” Veo said.
He explained that WPG failed the MQC4 simply because the WPIC financial statements for both 2021 and 2022, as well as the financial statement for 2022-23, were not submitted on time to meet the June 30th cut-off date, and the WPIC and WPG financial statements were not consolidated.
“It must be understood that WPG’s financial statements are all good and have been submitted on time, receiving unqualified opinions for the past three years. However, let us not confuse WPIC with WPG.
“We are the only province subject to the issue of financial statement consolidation because we are the only province that still operates an investment arm due to our property investments in Noro.
“As a government, we are committed to meeting the requirements of MQC4, and our submission of WPSC financial statements to the OAG is the first step in meeting those requirements,” Veo stated.
He also mentioned that the first draft of the PGSP review findings and recommendations had been presented to all provincial secretaries and the MCs, and performance measures had been drastically reduced.
“We have strongly advocated for the exclusion of the requirement for the consolidation of WPG and WPIC financial statements, arguing that while final statement consolidation is encouraged, it is not compulsory,” Veo said.
He pointed out that no public entity had ever been subjected to the consolidation of financial statements due to the complications of such an exercise, and therefore, the WPG should not be subjected to it either.
He said the assessment should only focus on the core functions of the provincial government, fixed service grants, and other SIG and donor funds under the PCDF framework.
END