Reporting Performance of Fiji Public Sector between the Coups

This paper seeks to examine the reporting performance of the Fiji Islands public sector entities for the period 2001-2005 as evidenced by the tabling of annual reports of Fijian government entities to Fiji’s parliament. A triangulation approach is adopted involving textual analysis of audit reports of the Whole of Government generated by the Office of the Auditor General, descriptive statistical and ANOVA analysis of the generation of annual reports tabled by five types of Fijian public sector entities to parliament, and semistructured interview analysis of key stakeholder observations of reporting performance of public sector entities in Fiji. The study finds that throughout the five-year time-period, very few public sector entities table an annual report. When annual reports of public sector entities are tabled, many are late or do not contain core financial statements. Further research might examine the leadership qualities of annual report generation rather than merely the filing and timing of reports, a major limitation of this research. While the recommendations made by the paper may improve reporting, the willingness to accept the changes may prove problematic. This study offers a comprehensive account, beyond the descriptive of the reporting performance of Fijian public sector entities over a long period of time. The triangulated research approach offers interpretivist Fijian-contextualised solutions to improve the reporting performance of Fijian public sector reporting.

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