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Jagdeo orders compliance, delinquents’ names will be published

Mar 27, 2010 News

… $201M unaccounted advances

Head of State, President Bharrat Jagdeo, has ordered that delinquent officials who have received conference advances and have not cleared these with the Finance Ministry are to comply within a month or their names will be published.
The President made the disclosure yesterday during a press briefing at the Office of the President.
He said that he had instructed Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh, to write to the officials who have not cleared their advances.
He said that the directive is that, “unless you clear in a month we are going to publish all the names in the newspaper.”
According to Jagdeo, some of the officials have charged that they have cleared their advances and that they have documentation to prove it but it, “is just paper work.”
Jagdeo is of the opinion that if that was the case then they should reconcile it with the Accountant General.
Following reports in this publication as it relates to uncleared monies handed over to officials as conference advances, and the fact that they have not been presenting the necessary documentation to account for how it was spent, this newspaper has been reliably informed that some have started to submit.
The figures for 2008 featured 117 advances to the tune of $29M, bringing the total uncleared advances to some $201M.
According to the 2006 Auditor General report, “Conference Advances continued to be uncleared long after they have been granted.”
It was pointed out that at the time of that audit, in March 2007, there were 377 advances totaling $91.1M for the years 2003 to 2005 that remained uncleared.
The issue recently took centre stage on the agenda of the Public Accounts Committee during scrutiny of the 2006 Auditor General’s report.
During 2006, according to the Conference Advances Register, amounts totaling $180.103M were expended on 287 overseas conferences and official visits, of which 131 advances totaling $57.603M remained outstanding at the time of reporting.
The Ministry at that time had stated that while some of the recipients were tardy in clearing their advances, others had submitted documentation to clear their advances, but due to the Department’s staffing situation, there were delays.
It was further stated that the delinquent officers were written to, requesting them to submit documentation to clear their advances.

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