Dr. Jennifer Westford trial…No evidence to support spending of over $600M at Public Service Ministry

Apr 27, 2018 News

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-three witnesses remaining

An audit conducted into the spending of over $600M by the Ministry of Public Service has found no paper trail to support how this sum was utilized.
This was revealed by Audit Manager at the Ministry of Finance, Chandrawattie Samaroo, who testified in the trial, yesterday, of former Minister of Public Service Dr. Jennifer Westford and Ms. Margaret Cummings.
Dr. Westford and Ms. Cummings are accused of stealing $639,420,000 from the state.
The women allegedly stole the monies between August 2011 and April 2015, while they were employed in the Public Service of Guyana. They have both denied an allegation of simple larceny and are out on $4.8M bail each.
Dr. Westford and Ms. Cummings are on trial before Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts. Appearing for the state are State Counsel Natasha Backer and State Counsel Teshana Lake.
Samaroo, during her testimony, told the court that she has been employed with the Ministry of Finance for over a decade. She said some of her responsibilities include conducting forensic audits of various ministries, departments and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDC).

The witness added that on the July 31, 2015, she received certain instructions from Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, which caused her to conduct an audit into monies sent to the Public Service Ministry for staff conferences, performance reviews, year reviews, skilled-based needs assignments, change acceptances workshops, training for scholarship awardees and social activities.
The witness added that she then went to the Ministry of Finance where she uplifted the account analysis for the inter-department records for the Public Service Ministry and Office of the President for the period 2006-2015.
The witness then identified the account analysis for 24 transactions from the years 2011-2015. After that, she requested payment vouchers and supporting documents from the Accounts Department at Office of the President.
The court heard that the accountant then gave her the payment vouchers with the memoranda attached. The witness said that she examined the documents and made photocopies before returning the original copies to Alan Williams, an Accountant at the Ministry of the Presidency.
The witness added that she collected the returned encashed cheques for the 24 transactions from the Accountant General and that she examined the payment vouchers and the 24 memoranda.
According to Samaroo, the memoranda had prepared letterheads of the Public Service Ministry and were all signed by Dr. Westford.
The witness stated that the memoranda stated that various exercises were to be conducted in various administrative regions.
It also stated that the Chief Personnel Officer, Margret Cummings, would be responsible for coordinating those activities, Samaroo said.
The court also heard from Samaroo that the 24 transactions were sent to the Office of the President and were approved by various Permanent Secretaries. Former Permanent Secretary Omar Shariff signed 20, Dr. Nanda Gopaul signed three and Technical Assistant Kamenie Seepaul signed one.
The memoranda, Samaroo added, were then sent to the Accounts Department at Office of the President for vouchers to be prepared.
The witness told the court that the Accounts Department prepared payment vouchers and entered them into the Integrated Financial System where they were passed for payments.
She said that cheques were then prepared in the name of the Permanent Secretary’s Office and they were uplifted by a clerk.
The cheques were then endorsed by Principal Assistant Secretary, Paula James, who then gave them to a clerk in the Accounts Department to be encashed.
The court heard that the monies were given to Alvin Williams.
Williams then paid over the cash to Cummings who signed in the dispatch book and on the payment vouchers.
Samaroo said that after conducting her audits, it was revealed that Cummings uplifted the monies. She added that she found no evidence that the monies were used to carry out the purposes stated on the memoranda or any governmental business.
She added that the memoranda stated that there were various evaluation exercises, staff conferences, performance reviews, year reviews, skilled-based needs assignments, change acceptances workshops, training for scholarship awardees and social activities in the different regions, and they were no cost figures stating the amount of monies that would be spent per region.
After her findings, the witness recounted that she visited the Public Service Ministry and asked for documents in support of the exercises stated on the memoranda. But according to her, there were none.
The witness then told the court that she then spoke to senior officers at the Public Service Ministry and they said that they were not aware of any of the exercises and did not participate in any exercise.
The matter was adjourned until May 7 for the witness to be cross-examined.
Based on information, 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 from the various administrative regions were contacted and denied ever receiving the cash. Investigations were carried out but the monies were never recovered.

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