Articles

In 2023, the Office of the Auditor General uncovered two cases of fraud at the Belize Treasury Department and the Embassy of Belize in Guatemala resulting in the government losing over two hundred thousand dollars. In the first instance, the office uncovered that the payroll scheme in the Treasury Department showed fraud in the sum of ninety seven thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars.  Meanwhile, at the Belize Embassy in Guatemala, the Auditor General found that over one hundred and seven thousand dollars was mismanaged by a staff member in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  While little information on the cases has been published on the AG Office’s website, our newsroom understands that the office completed two fraud audits and has since won the matters before the Public Services Commission.  Subsequently, the public officers involved were terminated. There are, however, five other cases where public monies have been mismanaged.  In 2022, the office launched an audit query into discrepancies involving the Belize Police Department and Smart Stream payments. Also in 2022, the government body conducted a performance audit on the procurement of tablets within the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Economic Development, but the results have not been published. Additionally, the office launched a fraud audit probing into the misallocation of funds at the Magistrate’s Court. We note that several pieces of information regarding the audits have not been released as the seven cases are currently before the courts. For this year, the Office of the Auditor General has embarked on an audit examination of assigned vehicles within the Police Department.