One year after GINA Audit findings…McCoy, Subhan still not sanctioned

Mar 31, 2017 News

Despite the findings and recommendations of a forensic audit conducted into the affairs of the

Former Information liaison to the President, Kwame McCoy

Government Information Agency (GINA), the APNU+AFC administration is yet to decide whether it will be going down the road of prosecution or simply count the losses.
It has been one year since the findings of GINA’s audit have been released. However, GINA’s Director, Beverly Alert told Kaieteur News yesterday that she knows of no move to sanction former Information liaison to the President, Kwame McCoy and former Head of GINA, Neaz Subhan.
One of the main recommendations coming out of the audit report relates to the recovery of expenditure incurred on “The Guyanese” newspaper. This project was handled by McCoy and Subhan.
While GINA spent $20.1M to print The Guyanese, it did not record an income, despite the fact that the newspaper attracted paid advertisements.
The special forensic audit report also noted that a Rajiv Sanchara was the one who received the handsome salary to print and distribute the newspaper in the United States.
Additionally, the report found that GINA paid $8,373,355 for television and radio programmes in New York. These programmes started in September 2014.
It was revealed that no revenue was received by GINA for advertisements during these programmes. Recommendations have since been made for the expenditure on the newspaper

Former Head of GINA, Neaz Subhan

to be recovered.
Asked yesterday what moves have been made to recover the money, Alert said, “Can we go after them (McCoy and Subhan) to recover the money? The principals will have to determine, as they have been doing in other agencies, what is to be done. They (government) have been carrying out investigations and then moving forward with prosecution…the audit was done, so now the principals will have to determine if it is worth the while trying to prosecute, and if there is enough material to prosecute.”
Alert said that she has no idea as to which direction the “principals” are heading in this regard.
However, she boasted that she has been making headway at the agencies and correcting many of the deficiencies pointed out in the audit.
Alert admitted that the agency is still working on checks and balances. “Do we have all checks and balances in place? We are still getting there, but we are not running into the red with our accounts.”
Alert also pointed out that the agency has been able to pay off the Guyana Chronicle the $74M it owed. This was an inherited debt.
Under Neaz Subhan, GINA accumulated the debt for advertisements placed. GINA kept refusing to pay, citing shortage of funds. But Chronicle continued to allocate space for advertisements. GINA cited financial problems as the reason why it could not have paid Chronicle, but found the money to print ‘The Guyanese’.
Alert said, “We have aggressively been going after agencies to get that debt settled…we are

GINA’s Director, Beverly Alert

doing much better now.”
Since the APNU+AFC Coalition assumed office, the paper which was circulated fortnightly in the US, was cancelled.
Former leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan, had criticized the taxpayer-funded newspaper on several occasions. He referred to it as a creature of the past regime which was only intended to carry the propaganda of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic.
Subhan had refused to answer critical questions from Kaieteur News on this newspaper, claiming that it was an internal matter.