Former Minister’s alleged $639M theft …Public Service Dept. has no records of memoranda signed by Dr. Westford – court hears

Oct 14, 2016 News

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There are no records at the Ministry of the Presidency (Public Service Department) to verify that 24 memoranda with signatures purported to be that of Dr. Jennifer Westford for hundreds of millions of dollars, were sent to the then Office of the President (OP) for approval to carry out activities from 2011 to 2015.
During this period, Dr. Westford was employed as the Minister of Public Service.
This was told to the court yesterday by Mr. Andre Dazzell, the Chief Accountant at the Ministry of the Presidency Department of Public Service.
Dazzell was at the time testifying when the trial of Dr. Westford and Margaret Cummings continued before Magistrate Judy Latchman.
Attorneys Dexter Todd and Bettina Glasford entered appearances on behalf of the defendants.
Westford and Cummings are accused of stealing $639,420,000 between August 2011 and April 2015, while being employed in the Public Service of the Government of Guyana.
They have denied the allegation and are currently out on $4.8M bail each.
According to court facts, Westford, of 55 ‘AA’ Victoria Avenue Eccles, East Bank Demerara (EBD) was employed as Minister of Public Service from 2001-2015, while her co-accused was the principal personnel officer of the Ministry.
Cummings, of 709 Section A, Great Diamond, EBD, was also in charge of the Ministry’s accounts department. It was discovered that on 24 occasions Westford signed memoranda amounting to $639,420,000 and sent them to the Office of the President for approval. Approval was granted and cheques were prepared and encashed by Bank of Guyana.
The monies were requested to carry out various activities throughout the 10 administrative regions. However, personnel were contacted and denied ever receiving the cash. Investigations were carried out but the monies were never recovered.
Guided by State Prosecutor Natasha Barker, Dazzell told the court during July 31, 2015, in an interview with the police, he was shown about 23 to 24 memoranda signed by Westford for various amount of monies. He said that 23 of the memoranda for the period August 24, 2011 and April 23, 2015 were shown to him.
According to the witness, 23 of the memoranda were captioned “Financial Assistance for Public Service Evaluation”, while one was captured “Award Ceremony.”
To date, Dazzell said he is still unaware if any evaluation exercises were carried out by the Ministry. In facts, he said that since he was appointed Chief Accountant on October 1, 2014, he has never seen memoranda for performance evaluation.
However, he said that he is aware of the Ministry carrying out award ceremonies annually for Guyanese doctors returning from Cuba.
The Chief Accountant said that he and other staff at the Ministry were instructed by the Auditor General Department to check and verify if records pertaining to performance evaluation were kept by the Ministry’s Accounts Department.
“Me and my staff checked to see if there were such documents but they weren’t any”, the witness recalled.
He testified that he is familiar with the defendant’s signature since he has seen several correspondents with her name. He explained, “I would have worked at OP from 1990 to 2007 and would have seen documents with purported signatures of the defendant (Westford).” Dazzell told the court that memoranda are usually signed by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry. During her tenure as minister, the witness said that Hydar Ally was Permanent Secretary.
When questioned by the Prosecutor as to how the Ministry receives money, Dazzell related that the ministry gets budgetary allocations from the Ministry of Finance. He said once the monies are approved, the ministry would then prepare cash flow statements. This he added is done under the various line items which included the payments of salaries, allowances and other expenses.
He explained that although monies allocated to the Public Service Ministry can be spent by another ministry, he said that his ministry utilizes 90 percent of funds given to them.
“Monies can be spent by another ministry by the issuing of an inter-department warrant. Inter- department warrants are prepared by the Accounts Department. The warrant details the head and sub head of the line items in which the money is being taken from. It also details the purpose for the amount. It is prepared in five copies and must be signed by the permanent secretary of the subject ministry.”
These warrants, according to the witness, were prepared and sent to OP upon instructions by him or Ms. Cummings.
The witness’ testimony was suspended until November 7, when the memoranda are scheduled to be tendered, admitted and marked as evidence.
At a July 6, court hearing, Dazzell had told the court that Margaret Cummings was employed within the same ministry. He said that she was the former Chief Personnel Officer; Acting Administrative Officer and Confidential Secretary to Dr. Westford. Dazzell told the court, “She (Margaret Cummings) was also responsible for the day to day operations of the Accounts Department and the person I reported directly to.”

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