The 2024 Auditor-General’s Report has uncovered an unreconciled variance of $370,370 between revenue recorded in the Fiji Police Force’s financial management records and bank lodgements for the year ending July 31, 2024, the audit shows. The discrepancy was detailed in the general administration sector report tabled in Parliament last week and has prompted the Auditor-General to call for immediate reconciliation of accounts.
Audit figures show the variance arose between the total revenue balance of $4,229,022 reflected in the Statement of receipts and expenditure and the bank lodgement clearance (BLC) account balance of $4,599,392. The report emphasised that, under prescribed finance procedures, figures recorded in the Financial Management Information System (FMIS) must be regularly reconciled against revenue statements and bank lodgements to prevent errors or omissions.
Breakdowns in the audit reveal that police clearance revenue—fees collected for issuing police clearances—totalled $3,730,993 in 2024, down from $4,172,805 in 2023 but higher than $3,043,366 reported in 2022. Miscellaneous revenue and commission rose notably to $498,029 in 2024, up from $275,339 in 2023 and $227,465 in 2022. Combined total revenue for 2024 stood at $4,229,022, a decline from $4,448,144 in 2023 but an increase on the $3,270,831 recorded in 2022.
The Auditor-General warned that variances between critical financial records point to the “existence of errors and omissions” and recommended that the Fiji Police Force ensure bank lodgements and revenue balances recorded in the FMIS general ledger are reconciled promptly. The report’s red flag comes as part of broader governance scrutiny over public finances and the systems used to account for government receipts.
In its management response appended to the audit, the Fiji Police Force acknowledged the variance and said reconciliations had been carried out by the revenue clerk. Police management attributed part of the difficulty to many online police-clearance payments that arrived with insufficient or mismatched payer details, complicating the task of matching deposits to records and issuing proper receipts. The force also said some deposits related to refinancing officers’ officer performance-related (OPR) arrangements, advance payment recoveries and donor funding that supports Police operations had contributed to the discrepancies.
While the Police Force signalled internal steps had been taken, the Auditor-General’s recommendation underscores the need for ongoing controls and routine reconciliations to ensure the integrity of revenue reporting. Timely reconciliation is particularly important given the movement in major revenue components year on year—declining clearance-fee income but rising miscellaneous receipts—changes that can mask mispostings or unrecorded deposits if ledger and bank records are not aligned.
The audit finding arrives against a backdrop of previous concerns about police financial management and accountability. In February 2026 a former senior officer was tried in relation to misdirected cash, a case that highlighted procedural weaknesses in how seized or unclaimed funds were handled. The latest Auditor-General report will likely increase pressure on police finance teams and oversight bodies to tighten controls and provide clearer explanation of adjustments between FMIS records and actual bank lodgements.