The head of the APY Lands governing body has resigned as new documents reveal the depth of the organisation’s financial troubles.

Acting general manager of Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lesley Johns has handed in her resignation, due to take effect at the end of March.

Johns told InDaily she was comfortable stepping down, having exposed a raft of problems with APY governance, and taken measures to fix it, during her brief and tumultuous time as acting general manager.

“I took on the role thinking it was only going to be a month,” she said.

“That month extended out into three months, and basically I’ve done what I needed to do.

“I’ve exposed a raft of problems and taken measures to ensure those problems are being addressed.

“I have a family and a business I run in Adelaide.”

Johns has come under fire from some quarters for her performance in the job, including accusations in media reports about her behaviour towards another APY staff member.

“If anyone is leveling those allegations towards me, in the fullness of time I’ll be shown to be doing nothing but behaving in an honest and reputable manner,” she told InDaily.

Lesley Johns.

New Aboriginal Affairs Minister Kyam Maher would not comment on Johns’ performance as acting general manager, but said “my department and I will continue to work with the APY executive board to find a new general manager”.

Allegations of financial mismanagement have,  in recent months, been leveled at the taxpayer-funded executive board.

The State Government last week restored some funding to the board after more than $1 million was withheld over eight months.

InDaily has obtained an internal report revealing APY Administration had not produced an overall budget in “a number of years” and has “no idea of its current financial position”.

The financial systems assessment, compiled by Accounting For Good, was commissioned by Johns and handed to the board in December last year.

It appears to reveal a plethora of flaws in the board’s financial management systems which it says amount to breaches of the Land Rights Act.

It says board members have not been adequately educated about “what a good financial system looks like”, and that APY administration uses poor systems of transparency and accountability and dated payroll systems.

The report finds that the board has been making decisions without being provided with the financial reports and budgets necessary to make them.

It recommends that all financial management functions for the APY lands be outsourced to an external firm.

“We found no evidence of financial reports being presented to the board on a regular basis,” the report reads.

“The board has not received annual budgets for the whole organisation’s operations for a number of years.

“… the (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunitjatjara Land Rights) Act is not being followed in relation to the provision of 13A Reports and Budgets.

“As the audit is not yet complete for the prior year (2013) the opening balances for the current financial year have not been put into the new file, leaving the organisation with no idea of its current financial position.

“The current bookkeeper who is located in the APY office is not a qualified bookkeeper and is expected to keep accurate and detailed accounding records in a very complex business.

“Her work has not been adequately supervised.

“The current system does not easily allow program managers to review (and therefore verify) the spending transactions…

“This lack of accurate reporting has resulted in accidental overspending on projects.

“In one case, the inaccurate accounting of staff entitlements on a Land Management project resulted in $100,000 discrepancy between pre- and post-audit verification (i.e. overspending on a grant).”

According to Johns, auditing company KPMG has been commissioned to fix the problems detailed in the report.

Maher said an independent audit would also be commissioned by the Government into the APY’s accounts.

“An independent audit which will assess APY expenditure delegations and financial controls will be undertaken, and a forensic audit of all financial accounts has also been agreed to by the APY,” he said.

“The outcomes of these assessments will help inform the kind of support government will continue to provide to the APY to enable them to improve their governance processes and meet their financial reporting requirements.”

Johns said the report “confirmed some of the concerns that I had held”.

“It also showed that APY was not a basket case.

“Yes there were some issues, but nothing that cant be fixed … (and) there was no evidence of corruption by the board.”

The report says financial controller Kevin Chan “appeared to have his attention focused on delivering reports to (the State Government) rather than meeting the needs of the board and managers for financial information”.

The report’s author, Nerida Nettelbeck, was unable to contact Chan, who had been on sick leave since October.

Johns said Chan was now on leave without pay and may be working in in South Africa.

“The APY Executive Board is heavily reliant on the general manager and financial controller to assist them in their understanding of financial governance systems and processes,” the report says.

“Board members are elected to represent their constituents in managing the land and have not been recruited for their skills in accounting, legal or governance knowledge and skill but rather their knowledge of kin and culture and their ability to represent Anangu across the APY Lands.

“Finance reports have not been provided in an easy to read format for a number of years, except for annual budgets that were not easily understood.”

The report says the financial controller should not have such a broad role coordinating payroll, supplier payments, preparation of books for auditing, and salary sacrifice processing.

“This poses a potential risk to APY as only one person holds the entire system together,” the report says.

“In the absence of the Financial Controller the system falls down and fails to operate.”

InDaily‘s attempts to contact Chan have failed.