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Heavily overdrawn Consolidated Fund will affect Budget – Former AG
Former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran contends that the heavily overdrawn Consolidated Fund will definitely affect the next budget and even the process for it.
Former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran
The Chartered Accountant in an interview with Kaieteur News said, “The overdrawn balance will definitely affect the size of the budget and the process for it if government is to exhibit financial accountability and control. We have to aim over a period of time to ensure that we have a balanced budget, meaning that expenditure must not exceed revenue.”
In addition to asserting that Guyana has been living beyond its means and has accumulated billions in deficits, the former AG insists that the government needs to pay particular attention to revenue assessment and collections.
“I am on record as having stated that the Guyana Revenue Authority has the potential for increasing revenue collections by at least 50 per cent, which works out to be approximately $60 billion. Then, we have the “parallel treasuries” in NICIL, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), not to mention the Lotto funds,” said the Chartered Accountant.”
Goolsarran stated that if all these monies are placed into the Consolidated Fund, the overdraft is likely to be reduced significantly. He said, too, that there are also numerous bank accounts sitting at the Bank of Guyana.
He said that a “clean-up exercise” needs to be undertaken to identify funds that belong to the Consolidated Fund so that the necessary transfers can be made.
During a meeting with several officials within the Ministry on May 19, last, Finance Minister Winston Jordan said he was told that the Consolidated Fund being in overdraft is due to the behaviour of the Guyana Gold Board and its failure to reimburse the account.
Jordan had said that while he believes that the Gold Board has been drawing heavily from the Consolidated Fund hence the state it is in, he will provide a more concrete position when he is informed of the state of affairs of the Gold Board. He had said, too, that he has asked the Accountant General to provide him with some figures in that regard.
Goolsarran later stated that the Minister was inappropriately informed and emphasized that while the heavily overdrawn Consolidated Fund can affect the budget process, it could have an impact at the rate at which the new government achieves certain goals within one hundred days.
Only recently, the financial commentator disclosed that based on his findings, Guyana has accumulated over $80B in debt with respect to Treasury Bills and estimated that the Consolidated Fund could be overdrawn by as much as $60B.
Goolsarran said that the overdraft situation can be traced back to 1992 and earlier periods.
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