Nearly a decade has passed since the most recent complete government-wide audit in Belize was finalized, and the country’s top auditor is pushing back against criticism that her office is to blame for the crippling backlog of unpublicized fiscal reports.
In a public address updating lawmakers and citizens on ongoing audit operations, Auditor General Maria Rodriguez confirmed that her team is gearing up to launch a sweeping review of 10 years of public spending at Belize’s Ministry of National Defense. Even as the office takes on this high-stakes new assignment, it has faced growing backlash from the public over the fact that the latest government-wide audit released to the legislature covers only the 2017–2018 fiscal period.
Rodriguez pushed back against claims that audit inefficiency caused the years-long delay, shifting responsibility to the Office of the Accountant General. Per Belize’s current Fiscal Administration and Responsibility Act (FARA) Section 16, the Auditor General is required to pair all completed individual agency audits with a full set of annual financial statements submitted by the Accountant General before any audit report can be finalized, certified, and released to the public.
According to Rodriguez, the most recent complete annual financial statements received from the Accountant General are the 2017–2018 documents, which are set to be formally tabled in the legislature the day after her address. “I depend on her to submit her work for me to be able to submit my work,” Rodriguez explained, emphasizing that her team has completed hundreds of individual audit reports for the 2017 through 2020 fiscal periods that are ready for public release, but remain locked under current legislation.
To resolve the growing backlog, Rodriguez has opened talks with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of the Caribbean (IDI) to develop policy solutions, and is calling for a revision to FARA. Her proposed reform would allow the Auditor General’s Office to release completed individual audits to the public immediately after they are finalized, removing the requirement to wait for all annual financial statements to be submitted before any reports can be published.
“The delay is really on the accounting aspect of it, not the auditing aspect of it,” Rodriguez stressed. “As long as it is submitted, it will be audited, but it’s not being submitted at this time.” The push for legal reform marks a key step toward untangling Belize’s fiscal transparency gridlock, as the government works to improve public accountability for decades of public spending.