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Finance Ministry’s Public Debt Register not in order-Auditor General
– Highlights increase in External, Internal debt for 2016
An examination of the Public Debt Register by the Audit Office revealed that it was not properly written up in respect to recording of entries. As a result, Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, in his latest report said that the accuracy, completeness and validity of the Public Debt Register could not be relied on.
Nevertheless, during November 2016, with the aid of Commonwealth Secretariat, through technical assistance, the Ministry of Finance was able to have the Public Debt System computerized using the Commonwealth Secretariat Debt Recording Management System (CSDRMS).
Auditor General, Deodat Sharma
However, at the time of reporting, Sharma found that the system was partially implemented with the Debt Management Division having the authority to record, input and validation of all data entered into the system. Additionally, Sharma said that the Public Debt Section has only real-time viewing access and cannot input data and customize report.
In response to this finding, the Ministry of Finance said it started the process of fully computerizing the activities of Public Debt.
In 2014, the Ministry noted that the Public Debt Section was connected to the Debt Management Division’s CS-DRMS system to operationalise the Domestic Debt Module and to use the system reports for reconciliation.
At the end of last year, the Finance Ministry said that staff was fully trained in the use of the new CD-DRMS version and are able to extract the requisite reports for verification and reconciliations.
Additionally, the Ministry said the department will be fully utilizing the CSDRMS through one database housed at the Ministry of Finance and preparation of the Public Debt Statement will be done using the new system.
This means that there will be no need for reliance on the manual records in the Public Debt Section since the CS-DRMS would become the single repository for all debt related transactions.
Be that as it may, the Audit Office still recommended that the Ministry of Finance take steps to have the Public Debt system fully computerized, and to carry out monthly reconciliation of its records with those of the Debt Management Division.
The Auditor General also made mention of Guyana’s external and internal debt figures for 2016.
Regarding external debt, Sharma said that at the end of 2016, it was $235.711 billion, compared with $232.097 billion at the end of 2015, a net increase of $3.614 billion.
The Auditor General said that this increase was due to a number of reasons. He said that some of these include disbursements totaling $11.811 billion or US$57.196M in respect of loans contracted; the capitalization of interest for Non Paris Club Creditors totaling $677.229M or US$3.280M; and the inclusion of interest for oil shipped to Guyana under the PetroCaribe agreement totaling $448.518M or US$2.172M for the period 2014 to 2015.
As for internal debt, Sharma said that this increased by $8.900 billion from $119.976 billion to $128.876 billion.
He noted that this increase was as a result of the issuance of non negotiable debenture certificates totaling $4.882 billion to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS); the increase in the issuance of treasury bills totaling $4.031 billion; the issuance of a non interest bearing debenture totaling $21.402M; and the principal repayment of an internal loan totaling $35.478M.
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