Forensic audit findings... BE PATIENT - says Minister Sharma

Forensic audit findings… BE PATIENT – says Minister Sharma

Jul 16, 2016 News

There have been allegations of millions of dollars vanishing; kick-back schemes; evidence of misappropriation of monies; monies being stashed in other accounts and the payout of monies to ghosts. These are contained in the 40-plus completed Forensic Audit reports and suggest that massive corruption existed in several government agencies.
The Minister within the Ministry of Finance, Jaipaul Sharma, during a recent interview, stated that the current administration is pulling out all the stops to ensure that justice will be served.
However, he is asking that the public be patient since investigations stemming from the audits are delicate and time consuming.
The Minister was at the time attending an event at the Marriott Hotel earlier this week when he was told that the audit reports, which were conducted into several government agencies have exposed irregularities and large scale theft in some areas and yet there have been no prosecutions.
He was later asked what the Government has done so far to ensure that those corrupt characters face the brunt of the law. He responded that some of the audit reports have been sent to the Police for further “address” because instances of financial crimes were detected in the reports. Others have been sent to the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU).

Minister within the
Ministry of Finance,
Jaipaul Sharma.

Sharma said that the government wants to be sure that all the channels and all the processes are followed so that when charges are laid, it will be a sure thing and not a “goose chase”. He added also that they do not want to give the impression that the coalition government is witch-hunting.
The Minister stated that making the audit reports public was never the intention. Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, had requested that the reports be done this way.
Sharma is now questioning what the opposition is doing now that the reports are out there. He is questioning if the People’s Progressive Party/Civic – the previous administration— is conducting any “internal investigations to see what their people did”.
He added that if one should look closely at the audit reports, one would see previous Government Ministers’ involvement as they corrupted several Government Boards.
Meanwhile, a Cabinet sub-committee was established to examine the audit reports. Sharma told media operatives, recently, that the special sub-committee will look at the audits and decide who will be prosecuted in terms of sending it to the police while the disciplinary issues are sent to the Board of Directors of the particular entity for corrective actions.
The Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) of the Guyana Police Force has been tasked with investigating alleged criminal acts identified by the auditors. According to the Minister, SOCU is the most qualified department to investigate alleged crimes identified by the forensic auditors.
After National and Regional elections in May 2015 the Coalition government commissioned forensic audits into the operations of several departments of government. The audits have revealed many procedural and financial breaches and while some have recommended criminal charges be instituted on several former top ranking officials, disciplinarily actions were also recommend for others.

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