Deputy Peter Harwood commented:

"I welcome the UK Prime Minister's invitation to support its work on tax, trade and transparency as chair of the G8. Guernsey continues to demonstrate its commitment both to tax information exchange and to ensuring that the information exchanged meets the agreed international standards. This commitment has been confirmed through the independent assessment of organisations such as the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank. In addition, the fact that Guernsey is one of the jurisdictions which has been recognised by the UK government as meeting its own highest standards of tax information exchange shows that the UK is aware that Guernsey is part of the solution to tax evasion and not part of the problem.

"We welcome the forthcoming G8 meeting's focus on company ownership. Guernsey is one of only a handful of jurisdictions in the world that actually regulates corporate service providers and we also meet Financial Action Task Force's key recommendations on beneficial ownership."

ENDS

Whilst we continue to use the SAP software system for these activities (as we have for ten years), we have significantly improved the controls in place across the system to safeguard public monies in accordance with both best practice and the recommendations of Internal Audit. The changes made to our systems and processes are particularly important in the wake of the fraud incident of 2012. 

Delivering change on this scale has inevitably had an impact on the way our processes operate, and our staff are working through the issues encountered since the new system went live. Where any backlog exist in terms of payments to vendors, our central Vendor Team in the Hub is working each day with departmental colleagues to collectively manage the issue, liaising with and apologising to specific suppliers where appropriate.

Payments to States vendors since January (made through the revised SAP system we have introduced) stand in excess of £60m, so the system is in place and fully operational. The level of payments made is in line with what we would have expected to have paid in respect of the trend seen over previous financial years, but it is acknowledged that we need to further improve the speed of some payments to suppliers. As the public would rightly expect, however, where a query exists in respect of a specific payment requested by a supplier, our staff do investigate that query and resolve it before payment can be made. 

We remain confident of and committed to the achievement of a business-as-usual state for our revised procurement and vendor payment processes as soon as is practicable. The patience and support of all vendors, and the public, is very much appreciated.

If we can do anything to assist, please contact us at Payables@gov.gg

ENDS

Contact details

Mrs Jill Allen

Tel: (01481) 717000

Email: jill.allen@gov.gg