I will probe contentious housing allocations

Jan 16, 2010 News

Auditor General (ag), Deodat Sharma, yesterday confirmed that the brouhaha surrounding the most recent allocations to the Housing Ministry have caught his interest and he will be undertaking a probe despite the fact that there have been no formal submissions to him.
Sharma, yesterday told this newspaper that he is currently doing the 2009 audit and it should be completed by September and the allocations that were made to the Housing Ministry will be subject to scrutiny.
The comments come on the heels of calls by Opposition Leader, Robert Corbin, for Sharma to immediately undertake an audit of the relevant Ministries and to provide a report to the Public Accounts Committee.
This report, Corbin said, will form the basis for any punitive action that may be necessary for breaches of the relevant Laws.
Alliance For Change Chairman, Khemraj Ramjattan, is however forging ahead in his bid to have not only the Housing Minister but the Prime Minister prosecuted.
Ramjattan said that he is currently awaiting the Parliamentary Hansard of last Monday’s sitting.
The Hansard is the verbatim transcripts of the utterances in the House during a sitting and is usually released between three to seven days after the session.
According to Ramjattan, he is hoping that this could be fast tracked so that he could prepare his statement and have the attorneys file for charges to be laid.
Ramjattan had initially said that he would be piloting the charges but on Tuesday related to this newspaper that he was persuaded not to pursue the matter as an attorney but rather the chief witness.
He is seeking to have the Prime Minister and Housing and Water Minister, prosecuted for an alleged breach of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act.
The saga started in the National Assembly when according to Ramjattan, the Prime Minister and Ali failed miserably to explain the breaches.
Ramjattan said that he will also be going after the Public Service Minister, given that she had spent monies in October and was supposed to have reported back to the house on the very next sitting but did not do so until last Monday.
Ramjattan said that her excuses in the House on Monday were flimsy to say the least, adding that the Public Service Minister had adequate time to report the spending, coupled with the fact that she knew about the need for the expenditure for a long time before it was necessary and as such did not need to have a supplementary provision.
According to Corbin, “The Minister of Housing, in his ignorance, believes that the additional expenditure of $4 billion sought for the housing sector could be justified by broad explanations of providing 17,000 house lots for Guyanese…Political expediency cannot be a substitute for accountability and transparency.”

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I will probe contentious housing allocations

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