Finance Minister will pursue issues flagged in Auditor General’s Report if needed - Jagdeo
In light of news reports on several issues flagged in the Auditor General’s [AG] 2022 Report, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday said that Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh will pursue corrective actions, if needed.
Jagdeo was speaking in his capacity as General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) when he made this disclosure at a press conference held at Freedom House, on Thursday. “I spoke with the Minister of Finance and he assured (me) that he is going to personally take corrective action against any adverse finding,” Jagdeo told reporters.
According to him, the AG’s report is used by government to ensure that there is effective financial management and that the finance minister could engage accounting officers on any questionable transactions, and if issues persist or cannot be justified, those officers can be sanctioned. Asked by this newspaper to expound on the “corrective actions”, likely to be taken by the finance minister, Jagdeo said that, for example, if the Auditor General report had outlined a few financial discrepancies under the tenure of a Regional Executive Officer (REO) and he or she cannot account for the anomalies unearthed, then disciplinary actions could be taken against the individual. If the matter is deeply outrageous, then law enforcement [police] can likely be involved, he noted.
On December 14, 2023, Stabroek News reported that one of the findings in the report was that the Region Nine Council was continuing to award contracts to a blacklisted contractor. The report, which was tabled during the 69th sitting of the National Assembly on December 11, highlighted two contracts totaling $20.35m awarded last year to a contractor who is currently blacklisted by the Public Procurement Commission (PPC). Similarly, in 2021, the report said that eight contracts totaling $106.8m had been awarded by the very regional administration to the same blacklisted contractor. “The awarding of contracts by the region to the blacklisted contractor is in breach of Regulation 5 of the Procurement (Suspension and Debarment) Regulations 2019 made under the Procurement Act (Cap 73:05) and gazetted on June 21 2019”, the report said.
The Auditor General’s report also noted that $725m in drugs and medical supplies were still outstanding at the end of August this year. It was disclosed that the largest outstanding amounts to be delivered were from Western Scientific at $438m, New GPC Incorporated at $137m and Meditron at $100m. The report said that in September 2023, the Ministry of Health [MoH] submitted stores received and delivery notes for drugs and medical supplies valued at $133.6m. The audit office said that it is in the process of validating the deliveries. MoH, in response to the findings of the audit office, said that in addition to space constraints, it is the normal practice in the health supply chain to expect changes in delivery times for medicines and supplies after contracts are signed, due to unexpected demand patterns as a result of pandemics, natural disasters and profiles of illness. Therefore, it said that the ministry had staggered the deliveries to suit current needs. The audit office recommended that the head of the budget agency take action to ensure that suppliers of drugs and medical supplies honour their contractual obligation. The outstanding supplies were from a total of $9.58b in payments. The AG’s report also flagged the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for its inconsistent record on the number of incoming and outgoing vehicles registered at the port of entry and exit. An audit examination of the registers revealed that the information recorded by the Lethem Integrated Tax Office (which falls under GRA) was not consistent. The report highlighted that there were several instances where, pertinent information such as vehicle number, type of vehicle and colour of vehicles were not recorded. The total number of vehicles entering and leaving Guyana could not be accurately determined due to the absence of information recorded in the register. The report said that there is only one officer, who sits at a desk under the crossing and he/she has to record both the incoming and outgoing vehicles and passengers in two separate registers and from two different directions.
“During our visit on the 9-13 of August 2023, it was observed that vehicles were passing and the officer was unable to record the information in the registers”, the AG’s report said. According to the register, a total of 33,784 foreign vehicles entered Guyana through the Lethem port of entry and 27,511 returned to Brazil resulting in a difference of 6,273 vehicles remaining here. At the time of reporting in September 2023, there was no evidence that the 6,273 vehicles left Guyana.
The Head of the GRA, Godfrey Statia, indicated that the Guyana/Brazil Border crossing is not only a border crossing for commercial goods but has become a normal commute for hundreds of vehicles per day for persons from Brazil working here and locals working in the neighbouring country.
“Another large category of vehicles is tourists, shoppers, business personnel and persons attending school. As a result, we can expect to have 200-300 vehicles traversing the border within any given hour and this doesn’t provide for a manual system to function 100 per cent”, Statia explained. He noted that it should also be taken into account that 90% of the vehicles that cross the border daily are Guyana/Brazil taxis, Lethem minibuses and residents of Lethem/Bonfim. According to the GRA Head, the authority’s management has seen the need to move away from a manual process and have steps taken to acquire cameras that will record and document all movement of vehicles between the border crossing. “With the installation of these cameras, we can expect error-free reporting and computer-generated reports which would be accessible remotely by management by any given hour”, Statia said.