Some public bodies’ financial statements will likely never be brought up to date, according to the Minister of Public Works.

Speaking during the Motion to Adjourn in the House of Assembly on Friday evening, Lieutenant-Colonel David Burch, the Minister of Public Works, said that the Auditor-General, Heather Thomas, is “failing in her job miserably” but conceded it was not all her fault.

He said Ms Thomas needed to work with the Government to come up with a “nuclear option” to improve the filing of the audits of government entities.

His speech came in the midst of a war of words between the minister and Ms Thomas, who hit back last week at remarks he made previously in the House.

He said on Friday evening: “I would suggest that she is failing in her job miserably and it is not all her fault — I accept that — but it is her fault if she is not prepared to work with whatever government of the day to come up with a nuclear option, which means allowing other people who can count to audit the accounts and bring them up to date.

“And I would admit that some of these accounts are never going to be able to be brought up to date if what is missing out of them, as recorded by her — you ain’t going to find that stuff. So you are going to have make a firm decision that says right, we draw a line in the sand, we spank everybody who was guilty and we move on.

“At the end of the day, if we are genuine about solving the problem, then we need to come up with a method and mechanism together that does that.”

A statement issued on behalf of the AG’s office last week said: “Information provided to her office by many publicly funded entities is often incomplete or not reviewed in sufficient detail by management or those charged with governance, resulting in multiple accounting adjustments or the financial accounts not being submitted at all.

“This situation has gotten worse because of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The statement highlighted that as at September 2022, roughly 32 publicly funded entities have approximately 131 years of financial statements in arrears.