Health Minister defends $100M disappearance

Jun 30, 2010 News

The Ministry of Health, in a statement signed by Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, has rejected a headline in last Tuesday’s edition of Kaieteur News “$100M disappears, no paper trail found”, describing it as “a misrepresentation of the truth and blinded by an anti-government crusade.”
According to the statement issued last evening, the headline gave the impression that this newspaper had revealed a new story rather than one that occurred some 14 years ago, as is the case. However, the fact that the incident which had in fact occurred in 1996 and was on Monday gaining the attention of the Public Accounts Committee, was clearly detailed in the story published in this newspaper.
The statement outlined that “….the impression that Kaieteur News has revealed a breaking story of an event that has now taken place…The Ministry of Health is convinced that the Kaieteur News deliberately, mischievously and maliciously tried to portray a story that the Ministry of Health misappropriated $100M.”
But according to the statement, the truth is far from the impression created by the headline and the story in the newspaper, thus the need for the Ministry to set the record straight.
The Auditor General made reference to the fact that a Bank Account #946at the Bank of Guyana had never been reconciled prior to 1992. This Bank account could not be reconciled since the new Government in 1992 inherited a system in which none of the accounts were reconciled. Without the records prior to 1992, reconciliation was impossible, the statement added.
“This situation in 1992 was not unique to the Ministry of Health accounts, but to bank accounts of all Ministries. In spite of great efforts, reconciliation of the accounts after 1992 was impossible without accounting records prior to 1992.”
It was noted that in 1996 the Government decided to close these accounts in order to ensure that new, active accounts could be continuously reconciled, as required by law and by good accounting practices. This decision, the statement noted, was consistent with recommendations by the Auditor General as the only way to resolve the problem.
“The specific account that was the subject of scrutiny by the Public Accounts on Monday June 28 and that was the subject of the Kaieteur News story on June 29, Bank of Guyana Account # 946, was closed in July 1996. This account was non-operational from that date and was not in use by the Ministry of Health. Clearly, the Auditor General pointed this fact out – this was a non-operational account. Since it was a closed, non-operational account, the Ministry of Health could not deposit any money in this account, nor could it have withdrawn any money from this account. In any case, we could not make any payment out of this account because at the time the Ministry of Health closed this account it had an overdraft of just over $2M.”
According to the statement, the Bank of Guyana debited this account in June 1997, almost one year later with an amount of $100M, and details of this debit transaction were not provided to the Ministry of Health. This overdraft it was reported was highlighted by the Auditor General in his 1997 report.

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