CEO Francis Usher says there is nothing unusual about the ministry paying one company more than three hundred thousand dollars through thirty-five invoices in a single day. But our review found repeated values across several invoices, including nine thousand, four hundred and twenty-five dollars, and nine thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars, respectively. We asked whether those figures point to larger payments being divided into smaller invoices. Here’s how he answered.
Francis Usher
Francis Usher, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Finance
“The reason why in the system it says, oh on the same day, multiple of the same invoices are being paid. Well, it would be multiple of the same invoices for the same items that were delivered on a separate day, but they were submitted to the ministry, because we do mass submissions or batch submission of invoices, and then as soon as they are submitted to us and they have all the criteria. They start with a quotation, they get a purchase order, and then after the purchase order the items are delivered. Accompanying the delivery of the item, the item has to be certified as correct and matches the purchase orders received and a waybill has to be signed by both the company delivering as well as the BDF and the Coast Guard who is receiving the items. Then that amount of paperwork for one delivery is then put into a pile for that to be consolidated and submitted to the ministry. So, when they submit to the account section for payments, it is multiple payments across multiple deliveries or else what you would find happening is that every time something is delivered, they would submit. Instead, they consolidate and then they make submissions, whether it be bi-monthly or monthly. In many cases they are submitted over two months. In the case of Meat Master that was two months’ worth of payments.”
Too Little, Too Late? Ministry Ends Repeated Small Payments
CEO Francis Usher says the Ministry of Defense is changing how it pays vendors after the scandal. He says those repeated under-ten-thousand-dollar payments are now a thing of the past. Going forward, the ministry’s accounting office will bundle multiple invoices into one total payment, a process many say should have been used all along. Here’s how Usher explained it.
Francis Usher
Francis Usher, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Defense
“I do understand the current perception of being done to avoid transparency or accountability, I can confirm that is not the case. It is just a matter of a lot of these businesses require the capital to turnover of capital for their business to continue and they have figured out that they get paid quicker. But we have done now is that even though invoices are still, on a daily basis, I see invoices coming in that are sub-ten-thousand-dollar invoices, but what we are doing is compiling them by company now, several invoices into one invoice in the system, for it to be a bigger payment, just to give that ease and clarity and transparency that it is not a case where we are avoiding accountability. If anything we welcome the scrutiny and accountability and we want to demonstrate that it is a transparent process.”
CEO Usher says the audit is still underway, and the ministry continues to cooperate fully.
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