The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Claver Gatete has signed of the 12th annual Consolidated Financial Statements covering the period from 1st July 2016 to 30th June 2017. The Consolidated Financial Statements have been handed over to the Office of Auditor General.

The move is in accordance with the statutory requirement stated in article 67 of the Organic Law nº 12/2013/OL of 12/09/2013, on State Finance and Property, which requires the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning to prepare consolidated financial statements and submit them to the Auditor General of State Finances by 30th September of the following fiscal year.

The FY 2016/17 consolidated financial statements include 129 Budget Agencies under Central Government, 30 districts and City of Kigali under Local Government making a total of 160 Budget Agencies under the Government ordinary budget. In addition, there are 126 Self Accounting development projects under development budget.

Consolidated Financial Statements include also memorandum information relating to  Public Debt, Government Investments in Public and Private Enterprises and Financial Information for Sub District Entities (Pharmacies, Hospitals and Health Centers; Primary and Secondary Schools as well as Sectors)

This is the twelfth set of consolidated financial statements that MINECOFIN has prepared with the first having been prepared in 2007 and relating to financial year ended 31st December 2006. Since then, Government has prepared consolidated financial statement for each year with remarkable year-on-year improvement in terms of quality (accuracy and completeness) both at the Government wide consolidation level and at the individual reporting entities.

The enhanced quality has been evidenced by the gradual and progressive increment in the number of reporting entities achieving unqualified (clean) audit opinions over the previous five financial periods.

Timely submission and improved quality of the consolidated financial statements is as a result of efforts of the Office of Accountant General spearheading the consolidation exercise and cooperation from Chief Budget Managers and their finance staff in all public entities.

The submission of the consolidated financial statements to the Office of Auditor General will now pave way for the audit of both the consolidated financial statements as well of that of individual reporting entities for Financial Year ended 30th June 2017, the results of which shall be presented to the Parliament by April 2018.