Mayor miffed at ‘disrespectful’ audit into $300M subvention
Mayor Patricia ChaseGreen has labelled the manner in which the Auditor General (AG) and the Ministry of Communities have gone about investigating City Hall’s spending of a $300 million government subvention as “unprofessional and disrespectful.”
Speaking at yesterday’s Statutory meeting, ChaseGreen said she was in receipt of inconclusive reports of the audit conducted by the audit office. She said she had received the report which contained no recommendations after local newspapers had published findings from the 2015 AG report.
“I received an inconclusive report from the Auditor General and have been informed by the Town Clerk that the auditors are back again,” she said. “They are presently downstairs continuing this audit. They left submitted a report without any recommendations; this report doesn’t say draft, temporary it doesn’t say anything. In addition, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Communities would’ve sent in their internal auditors to examine the spending of the same $300 million. I don’t know what particularly they are looking for. It is upsetting that we have not seen the report before and it is in the newspapers. I welcome any audit done by the AG or any other person but I do not understand the manner in which they are operating. While we will tolerate it, all this clearly shows no respect to this council. This is very disrespectful, without completely finishing your audit you present a report and you did not wait for a response from us.”
The 2015 Auditor General’s report which presents the findings of a statutory examination of the Public Accounts of Guyana and the Accounts of Ministries, Departments and Regions was presented to the Speaker of the National Assembly by the legally required date of September 30, 2016.
It was laid in National Assembly on October 13 and noted several discrepancies in the spending of the $300 million allotted for Georgetown’s restoration. This sum was budgeted under the Ministry of Communities and it is the Permanent Secretary of that ministry who is required to account for its spending to the Public Accounts Committee.
Concerns raised in the report, include a $6.2 million expenditure on a double cab pick-up for the City Constabulary. The audit office, having examined 212 payment vouchers, also pinpointed discrepancies including 167 instances where there was no evidence of the vouchers being certified by the accountant or any other authorised officer; 140 vouchers totalling $143.683 million which had not been approved by the treasurer and 58 payments totaling $48.404 million which had not been approved by the Finance Committee.
AG Deodat Sharma also said that the basis of the award of several contracts for the weeding of parapets, desilting of drains and cutting down trees in various areas around Georgetown could not be determined due to the unavailability of supporting documents. As a result, it could not be determined whether proper transparency and accountability were exercised in the awarding of the contracts. Additionally, there was no evidence of receipt or payee acknowledgement for a payment of $750,000 to a contractor.
In the light of the findings of the AG a decision was taken by the Ministry of Communities to send in its own auditors so as to ascertain whether the discrepancies highlighted by the AG exist.
PS Emile McGarrell had explained to Stabroek News that the subvention was allotted to the city on the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that it would be used for environmental improvement so as to improve the health and well-being of citizens.
“The MoU stipulated certain procedures which were to be used in the spending of the monies so when the AG examined the city’s spending, he was checking to see if these procedures were followed. We wanted to know if this approach to helping local organs fulfil their responsibilities would work and these findings have illustrated that there are areas we need to focus on to make the instrument of the MoU more effective. These issues relate to internal capacity and speak not just to the system but also to the people who manage the agencies,” he said adding that the findings of the ministry’s auditors will determine how they deal with “the Town Clerk and his Treasurer.”
Yesterday, Chase-Green also addressed calls for Town Clerk Royston King to be removed. She stressed that sending the Town Clerk or the Treasurer home does not change the problems plaguing the city administration as there have been many changes in Town Clerks and Treasurers since she became a councillor and yet none of these changes has resulted in better system at City Hall.
Though the Mayor was vehement in her claims that no one had sought a response from the city before reporting on the matter, Stabroek News had contacted the Town Clerk, who, in the presence of the Mayor, stated that while he would not offer an elaborate comment until such time as the audit was completed he would note that several of the discrepancies were as a result of a lack of diligence in the Treasurer’s Department.