Accountant General changed to ‘speed up’ audited financial statements

Premier Andrew Fahie has said former Acting Accountant General Anna Rabsatt was replaced by Arnold Ainsley because the Treasury Department needed to get up to date with its audited financial statements.

Many people were questioning why a local was removed from the post for a foreigner, but Fahie clarified that there was no Accountant General confirmed to the post.

He said Ainsley is on a two-year contract and the hope is a Virgin Islander will take over once his tenure is completed.

During Ainsley’s tenure, the staff at the treasury will receive training to further improve the standards according to the Premier. Fahie added that there are things that must be taken into consideration once someone has taken up the post and for now, it is a transitional period.

“We have certain things that we have to get done in the treasury and we want to do some training and after the tenure. I think it is a two-year tenure. We will definitely have a Virgin Islander back in as the head of the treasury. There are some things we must accomplish including speeding up the process of having our audited financial statement up to date because it is a constitutional infringement,” the Premier said.

“It’s not that those things were not being done but we have to speed it up. There’s some expertise that the person (Ainsley) has in terms of the qualifications and expertise that we need at this time to get certain things accomplished that we want to accomplish and even stay in line with things we have to do for the United Kingdom,” he added.

Fahie noted that some persons working in the department need to qualify themselves so that they can maintain the level of performance and standards required internationally.