Amerindian Affairs

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The constitutional body responsible for the scrutiny of all public spending, on such things as contracts for infrastructure and the procurement of equipment and services, is yet to be established. Government is yet to submit its nominations for the body.This past week, the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, met and was supposed to have received the government’s nominations for the Public Procurement Commission.On Monday, the committee met with representatives from three Ministries who had to appear before the committee, to clarify various aspects of expenditure throughout the year 2006.The Ministries called in were Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and the Public Works and Communication.According to Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, Volda Lawrence, the Foreign Affairs Ministry from time to time is commended, but there are still many issues that keep reoccurring, such as segregation of duties in the many foreign missions.She noted that an eyebrow raiser, there was the transfer of monies for the Missions to meet their expenditure, “hence they incur overdrafts.”She noted that there was also the issue of substantial sums of money, between US$70 and US$80M, that are returned from the missions over the years.The Ministry records it in its books at one exchange rate and the Accountant General would record the same sum at another exchange rate, “and we seem not to be getting anywhere in getting these issues cleared up off the books.”There was a promise of collaboration between the Accountant General and the Director General of the Ministry, to resolve the issue.She said that under the Ministry of Home Affairs, particularly under the Guyana Police Force and Prisons, “they continue to be deficient in the way in which they handle their vehicles.”She noted that another bugbear was the way in which the entities accounted for their fuel used, as well as their log books and general inventory keeping.She noted, too, that the PAC was in no way satisfied with the answers provided by the Ministry of Public Works and Communication.According to the report, presented to the National Assembly by the Auditor General, the Contingencies Fund continued to be abused, with amounts drawn from the fund being utilised to meet expenditure that did not meet the eligibility criteria as defined in the Act.“According to the statement, amounts totalling $3.945 billion were drawn from the fund by way of 138 advances. As at 31 December 2006, forty-nine of these advances, totalling $1.721 billion, remained outstanding.”In relation to the Customs and Trade Administration, the Auditor General noted that 17 Permits for Immediate Delivery (PID), with a total value of $2.832 billion, had not yet been perfected at the time of the audit in January 2007.Incoming vessels at ports in Guyana numbered 1,089. However, completed ships’ files in respect of 243 ships, were not submitted to the Quality Review Section, and as such were not made available for audit examination.It was also noted in the report, that several Ministries and departments recorded overstatements on their appropriation accounts, and the unspent amounts have not been refunded, “Subvention agencies are not returning the unspent portions of amounts paid over to them for specific expenditure.”The Auditor General also cited in his report what he called the overpayment of contracts. “Several Ministries and regions have not recovered amounts overpaid on various contracts in prior periods. In addition, some of these Ministries and regions, such as Education, Amerindian Affairs, Regions Two, Three, Six, Seven and 10, continued to have overpayments on various contracts during 2006. One such example was recorded under the Ministry of Education, where $10.982M was overpaid on eleven projects which were mainly for the rehabilitation and extension to schools.”But Finance Minister, Ashni Singh, in an interview with this newspaper, said that it was regrettable that in some instances, the Auditor General’s Report did not in every case reflect the explanations that would have been proffered by the various Government Ministries and departments.The Auditor General is required by law to have included in the report, explanations for issues that raised an eyebrow.“I would say that, in the overwhelming majority of instances, the issues that have been reported by the Auditor General, have explanations that in many cases would have been offered by the respective Government ministries and departments.”The Finance Minister also stated, that what was also regrettable was that some of the issues were being highlighted sensationally in the media, when, in fact, if one were to understand and examine them properly, one would see that there is no question of impropriety at all.