Government’s promised response to the red flags raised by the Auditor General in his scrutiny of the accounts of ministries and public departments has been as welcome as it is has been intriguing.For most Barbadians, the question remains, what happens now?We are overdue for definitive action on issues of public fiscal management that successive administrations have repeatedly failed to confront.The script has been old and tiresome. Year after year, when the Auditor General report is tabled we express collective shock and outrage at its findings; the blame game between the political parties takes over; no one is held accountable; we mouth support for the Auditor General; then the nine-day wonder passes.We move on until the next report is laid with no fewer alarming findings of glaring deficiencies in financial reporting and record keeping, poor internal controls at state-owned enterprises and reports of failed projects where millions of taxpayer dollars are missing or misspent.The truism that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is apt for this litany of woe followed by inertia.Barbados is at a new juncture as we have turned a chapter as a republic. There could be no better foundation than accountability and transparency than the firm and unambiguous rooting of power - the power of the purse - in the People. There is no king but the citizen.
