The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has admitted to a Senate Committee that it does not specifically check the individual expenditures of superannuation fund trustee executives.
Giving evidence before the Senate Economic Legislation Committee, senior APRA official, Brandon Khoo said there was "no APRA policy per se on expense approvals".
Khoo had been questioned by the Senate committee chairman, Tasmanian Senator, David Bushby, about whether the regulator was aware of reports about the chief executive and chairman of an industry superannuation fund who had been checking and approving each other's expenses, including trips to South America and Switzerland.
Khoo, APRA's Executive General Manager, Specialised Institutions Division, responded that the matter had been under review by the regulator but that it was public knowledge that the trustee was no longer the trustee of the superannuation fund and that it had been merged into another superannuation fund.
However on the question of APRA's oversight of expense claims, Khoo said he did not believe APRA could give any assurances about the integrity of expense approvals within superannuation funds because "I think the reality here is that I do not think we can give that assurance per se because any control system irrespective of how strong it is, can potentially be breached".
Khoo said APRA did not audit expense generally, but it did review the level of expenses.
He said that auditing the expenses and approval processes within a superannuation fund was a matter for an external auditor.
