The Auditor General has urged Finance Minister Paula Cox to step up efforts to curb overspending across Government departments.

The call for tighter control from Larry Dennis came in his latest report on Government finances, where it was revealed that the total unapproved operating expenditure across several major departments ran to more than $67.4 million.

It emerged that the bulk of this was a $49.8 million overshoot by the Accountant General's department, caused by a $52 million write-off out of the Consolidated Fund, the fund through which Government conducts most of its transactions, to top up four years of insufficient pension contributions to the Public Service Superannuation Fund.

Other free-spending departments included the Department of Social Insurance, which overran by $5.8 million, the Department of Education ($4.7 million), the Department of Corrections ($1.5 million) and the Department of Marine and Ports ($1.2 million).

Mr. Dennis, commenting in the report which covers the 2004/5 financial year, said some departments had ignored spending limits imposed by the House of Assembly.

For 2005, he stated, 20 departments and offices had overspent by $67.4 million without first getting legal approval to do so through supplementary estimate requests.

In 2004, 13 departments overspent to the tune of $5 million. Mr. Dennis added: "Until this year, the Ministry of Finance had enjoyed considerable success in reducing unapproved expenditures by convincing departments that overspending their appropriations is a serious legal infraction.

"This included requiring Departments that exceeded their legislated expenditure limits to submit explanations for their conduct, and threatening sanctions against departments that exceeded their limits for two consecutive years."

But he warned: "In view of the substantial increase in 2005 in the number of offenders and the amounts involved, the Ministry needs to intensify its efforts in this regard."

Responding to the report in the House on Friday, the Finance Minister said Government had "jump started" the improvement process by re-establishing the internal audit team, which has already held "searching interviews" with every Permanent Secretary and department head on spending.

She said the audit team's aim was to ensure adequate internal controls were in place for the production of "reliable, timely and accurate information".

It also investigates any fraudulent activity and thefts of Government property and prepares reports on findings and recommendations to prevent reoccurrence.

Ms Cox said there was also a continuing focus to ensure that in the key revenue-generating Ministries, professional accounting expertise was available so that "accounting officers were better enabled to properly discharge their functions".

The Accountant General has finished setting up a accounting infrastructure that placed qualified accountants throughout Government at departmental or Ministry level ? which she said would ensure financial controls were improved and accounting needs met.

She told the House: "In total there are approximately 25 qualified accountants within this improved Government accounting and financial reporting framework, which addresses the concern that Government lacks adequately qualified accounting personnel in certain areas.

"Government will continue to review its accounting structure to see where additional enhancements may be made.

The Finance Minister also said that financial statements for the Consolidated Fund for 2004/5 had been completed, audited, published and tabled in the House.

"There is a clean audit opinion on the Consolidated Fund for 2004/5," she stated. "This is a clear example of Government's commitment to a sustained programme of fiscal discipline and prudent management."

The report revealed that capital spending limits were also breached in 2004/5. "These overspendings totalled $1.2 million in 2005, compared with $190,000 the previous year," reported Mr. Dennis.

The Auditor General, meanwhile, applauded the Accountant General on reporting the $52 million Consolidated Fund write-off as an expenditure, rather than as a "valuation adjustment", which had been the case with an $11 million top-up in 2001.