GECOM says that there is nothing wrong with its accounts

Jul 17, 2010 News

Officials at the Guyana Elections Commission have issued a statement on a recent article published by this newspaper that the organisation may escape a forensic audit.
According to that statement GECOM is “… not aware of any call for or any situation that warrants a forensic audit; we do not consider Kaieteur News’s speculative comment that GECOM ‘may escape a Forensic audit, despite the fact that allegations of corruption have been leveled at the organisation’ worthy of any great response.”
However, just days after the publication of the very first article on the alleged corruption in the procurement practices of GECOM, the agency released a full page advertisement dated April 9, 2010 and titled, “GECOM debunks allegations of corruption”.
In that advertisement they stated that “based on the publication of the article in question, Mr. Gocool Boodoo, Chief Election Officer has written the Auditor General a letter dated April 6, 2010 inviting him (the Auditor General) to conduct a special audit of GECOM’s accounts to determine whether there has been any breach in the procurement procedures used by GECOM as was alleged in the Kaieteur News article in question.”
The statement about the July 7 Article went on to say they are well aware of those discrepancies documented in the 2008 Auditor General’s Report and that these have already been responded to by Mr. Gocool Boodoo.
It was also pointed out that the Commission will be meeting with the Public Accounts Committee in the near future to address all outstanding concerns arising from the Auditor General’s Report and according to the release, “The Commission is confident that the concerns would be addressed to the satisfaction of all concerned.”
The points raised by GECOM in the full page advertisement were then reiterated in the response to this latest article. Among these were comments on the Commission’s ‘compliance’ with the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act as well as the National Procurement and Tender Administration Act.
The advertisement said, “GECOM prides itself with the reputation of procuring goods and services with the approval of the Central Tender Board and/or the Cabinet as necessary.”
The statement addresses the matter of a sum of $24.6M being dispensed to a ‘mysterious’ supplier by saying that “There are extremely few instances relative to the many financial transactions undertaken by GECOM, which necessitate single sourcing. The latter must be approved by both the Central Tender Board and Cabinet. This was done in the case of the $24.6 million referenced by the Kaieteur News.”
The comment that the payment of these funds was ‘approved’ by the Central Tender Board and Cabinet does not change the fact that the Auditor General’s team was unable to find any trace of this supplier and recorded same in the 2008 Auditor General’s Report.
On the matter, the report said, “… it was discovered that a GECOM supplier, from whom purchases totaling $24.633M were made could neither be located at the stated business address nor be contacted by telephone. This prompted suspicions that the supplier may not have been genuine.”
The report continued, “Checks undertaken revealed that documents relating to the supplier’s business registration had been falsified.”
The full page advertisement also stated that the Auditor General’s team was currently undertaking an annual audit of the agency. While the response reiterated this it went further to say that “They (the Auditors) have no knowledge of any corruption at GECOM.”
The Auditor General, Mr. Deodat Sharma, confirmed to this newspaper that his auditors were indeed currently reviewing the accounts at GECOM, however up to July 7, last, it had not uncovered any discrepancies that would merit the launch of a forensic audit.

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GECOM says that there is nothing wrong with its accounts

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