After dissolving its General Inspectorate of the Administration, absorbed into the DMRA in 2015, and then into the DTI in 2024, the Country will create, as of January 1, 2027, a General Inspectorate of Finance. This IGFPF, placed under the authority of the presidency, will be able to oversee the country’s services, but also, and above all, its public institutions, the companies in which it holds stakes and even the beneficiaries of public aid. An instrument that Warren Dexter presents as a way for the country to “conduct its self-critique of the use of public funds.”
After two years of discussion, the Council of Ministers adopted this Tuesday the decree creating the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGFPF). Placed under the direct authority of the country’s president, it is expected to become operational from January 1, 2027.
“It is tasked with auditing, oversight, evaluation of public policies, advisory work and support for reforms,” described the administration, as well as “preventing and detecting fraud in public aid.” Its scope naturally excludes municipalities and state organs, focusing on “the country’s services and public institutions, mixed‑economy companies and local public enterprises, the companies in which the country holds a stake, beneficiaries of public aid, public service concessionaires and the Social Welfare Fund (CPS).”
On Radio 1’s set, November 4, Warren Dexter, Minister of Economy and Finance, recalled that the project had been under consideration since 2024. The objective, according to him, is to enable the country to “conduct its self-critique of the use of public funds.”
The Return of IGAT?
As some autonomist lawmakers at the assembly have already noted, Polynesia already has a body tasked with ensuring the proper use of public money: the General Inspectorate of Administration (IGAT, then IGAPF), established in 1985, which was merged in 2015 into the Directorate for Modernisation and Reforms of Administration (DMRA), thereby leaving behind some missions. At the time, five Category A officers handled audits, controls and investigations.
In 2024, as part of a service restructuring plan, the DMRA was merged with the Human Resources Directorate to create the Directorate of Talent and Innovation, effectively signaling a near-complete abandonment of control functions. Some, such as the public service union, already predicted a return of the General Inspectorate of Administration. By late 2025, the government even spoke of a new “General Inspectorate of Administration and Finances,” which ultimately limited itself to Finances.
This recreation has already drawn criticism in Tarahoi, concerning the government’s shift in course, the encroachment on the oversight functions of the assembly, or the cost for a small community of such an IGFPF, inevitably modeled on the national IGF. The government today assures that this launch will be achieved without new expenditure. The five agents, including two inspectors, who will initiate the inspection will be recruited internally, by transforming existing posts or redeploying vacant posts. Over the course of the year, the number of agents is expected to rise to eight, without “increasing the wage bill,” vows Warren Dexter.
Non-public Conclusions
The IGFPF is expected to operate differently from the IGAT in its time. It will only intervene if seized by “joint mission letters from the President and the Minister of Finance,” the country notes. Presented as a means to bring an external perspective to ministries on the use of public funds, it remains an internal government tool. Its conclusions will not necessarily be publicly accessible, and will remain at the discretion of the country’s president.
One of its important areas of work, as Warren Dexter had highlighted, should be the monitoring of the country’s “satellites.” The OPH, the OPT, ATN or TNTV were notably cited by the Finance Minister last year. At that time, the minister spoke of roughly thirty structures that regularly depended on balancing subsidies. The envelope allocated to them reached 5.6 billion francs in 2025.
The challenge is, notably, to avoid budgetary bad surprises. Upon joining the government as a technical adviser to the ministry, Warren Dexter explained that he had underestimated the financial weight of these structures. He wished to involve “elite, specialized” officials on the boards of these satellites to monitor strategic decisions that could impact public finances.
