Massive fraud uncovered at M&CC- report

Jun 16, 2012 News

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–  Three top officials likely to be sacked

The Ministry of Local Government has discovered that the Mayor and City Council owes various entities over $1B. This was disclosed at a press conference on Wednesday at the Ministry of Local Government.
According to reports, the investigation was sparked by allegations against the Town Clerk and the Treasurer by the Auditor General’s office. The probe soon became more detailed.
Among the findings was the existence of “dummy companies”, ridiculously high over time claims, high debts, fuel fraud, abuse of company resources for personal use and unauthorized loans.
The probe was executed by a special team headed by Keith Burrowes and the exposures, according to him, were “most shocking.”
Burrows said that over a year ago, he and his team, after investigations, prepared a report of recommendations and handed it over to the City Council. He said that the Ministry of Local Government and the City Council then reached agreement for the 40 “key” recommendations to be implemented within the City Council system.
Burrowes said that all equipment needed to implement the recommendations was handed over to the council, including a number of computers. “From the findings of this report, not one of the recommendations was implemented.”
“We are not going to sit idly by and have the works of myself and colleges go down the drain.”
Burrowes said that Ramon Gaskin, a member of the investigative team, spent three months at the Mayor and City Council to get factual inside information.
Findings
Burrowes disclosed that the Government of Guyana, last year, handed over seven new garbage trucks to city council. However, recent checks disclosed that one of the trucks was inoperable. It had a burnt engine. So, he said, the team started to explore reasons.
He said that it was soon realized that it was a deliberate ploy to have the trucks “lined up” instead of being used so that the “other people” could be contracted; “and we are now seeing the link between some members of the council and these other persons.”
He spoke of the discovery of “what we would call dummy companies.” Burrowes said that the first step in realizing that the companies being paid large sum of monies were fake was a simple check on the invoice sheet.
He said that the invoice was lacking a phone number or location of the company. “It is unusual for a company invoice to be lacking its location and telephone number.” Further, he stated, the team took the next step–checking the telephone directory for the name of the payee companies were listed in the directory. “We then checked to see if the companies were registered, no!”
He said that what is more cause for concern is that a cheque was prepared for $8M and on the invoice it was asked for the cheque to be prepared for a Ms. V. McDonald. “That raised some eyebrows because if a payment is being prepared for works done by a company then the cheque should be made payable to the company not an individual.”
Burrowes said that the City Council has 800 members of staff. “Now if all those people are working, the city should be cleaner.”
The head of the investigative team said that the findings of the probe suggested that there are also numerous “dummy employees.” He said that for that particular situation, he is calling for a somewhat costly exercise that will avoid situations like this.
Burrows asked that all employees of the Mayor and City Council be photographed and documented for reference. “We can know for sure that he is a real man, he is alive and he is working with the company…and I recommend that exercise to be mandatory.”
The overtime at M&CC, he said, is appalling “… I think that is the only place where the overtime is rivaling the overall employment cost.”
He cited one case of a senior officer having a driver at his disposal for 17 hours on consecutive Sundays. “It is unbelievable. The driver should be going to a union, if he has to work 17 hours in one day.”
The probe also examined the issuing of gasoline. The findings show the issuing of gasoline and diesel to be unbelievably high. Burrowes said that it means, therefore, fuel not only goes to the official’s vehicles. “It has to be going somewhere else.”
Burrows added that the system is so set that M&CC is supposed to consult with the Ministry of Local Government before applying for a loan. However, the council was loaned $49.999M without the Ministry’s approval.
M&CC is now repaying $750,000 a month or some $9M a year. He said that that money will now have to be taken from another account. “They should be negotiating with the bank on this but nobody is looking at those things, said Burrows.”
Commenting on another finding, the “scrap metal issue”, Burrowes said that “they” rented the incinerator, Old Smokey, for storing scrap metal. They used the name “Wood Crop Scrap Metal…We looked for the registration of such a company and found none.”
“Now these scrap metals are being exported…We don’t know if Wood Crop Scrap Metal is made up of City Council Employees.”
Further, the council is highly indebted to the Guyana Revenue Authority. “They don’t pay NIS so if the workers get sick and go to NIS no benefit would be given”.
Burrowes said that there are still businesses that are paying residential rates and taxes. He said that such taxes payable to the council are 40 per cent as opposed to 400 per cent for a business “…But again they hadn’t found the interest to check those things out.”
Norman Whittaker, Minister within the Ministry of Local Government informed that M&CC owes GPL $882M. He said that GPL is now threatening to halt its street lights supply.
What is interesting, he said, is that there are “persons and businesses out there that are indebted to the tune of approximately $12B…but there is no interest shown by the council to collect those monies- a lot of which is owed by commercial businesses.”
Whittaker said that M&CC abuses the resources. “They run them down and instead of paying $5 to fix them they rent one for $50.”
Minister of Local Government, Ganga Persaud, said that his Ministry has allowed some situations to ride for too long but the delayed actions have come to an end.
“We have no doubt that these are the facts. However, a firm conclusion cannot be made until the council is given the opportunity to respond,” Burrowes said.
He said that in the event that the finds are verified, three top officials whom he referred to as “the Mafia” will be sacked.
This newspaper has learnt that the Town Clerk has been given one week to prepare a response to the findings of the report.

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