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Town Clerk fails to respond to audit queries on $500M spending for cleanup project
— After huge sums of money unaccounted for
Royston King
Failure of Local Government officers to respond to requests from the audit office in keeping with stipulations under Municipal and District Council’s Act Chapter 28:01 is an offence.
Moreover, under the Audit Act of 2004, an official is statutorily bound to respond to queries of the audit office within 30 days.
As such, administrative officers of the Georgetown Mayor and City Council, (M&CC), more specifically the Town Clerk, Royston King, is being accused of failing to provide information as it relates to spending under the $500M city wide clean up exercise.
The issue was brought to the fore yesterday by Audit Manager, attached to the Office of Auditor General, Dhanraj Persaud. He was at the time testifying before Commission of Inquiry, (CoI) into the affairs of City Hall.
The Audit Manager explained that the failure of a person to comply with the request from auditors as it relates to queries about financial records constitutes a breach of the laws governing such activities.
Persaud noted that given the failure by King to respond to the queries, the Audit Office has not been able to finalise its report for City Hall.
He nevertheless said that the incomplete documents were made available to the Commission.
“The reports were presented to the Commission but I must caution you that those documents are not the finalized. Persaud told the Commission that the Town Clerk was given the stipulated 30 days to respond to queries in relation to reports on City Hall spending of some $500M of government funds for the Restoration of Georgetown Project.
He noted, however, that King is yet to respond to the requests.
The Audit Manager explained that based on the records City Hall was provided with half a billion dollars from Ministry Of Communities for the city- wide clean project but huge sums of money remain unaccounted for.
Persaud noted that the Council claimed that the monies were for clearing the city of garbage, repairs to the municipal markets as well as repairs to the City Engineer’s Department, among other things.
However, in one instance, Persaud said that some $70.48M could not be accounted for.
He told the Commission that under the Audit Act of 2004, officials are statutorily bound to respond to request from the Council within a period of 30 days.
The Town Clerk had even requested an additional 30 days to respond. The Audit office granted the request.
That additional 30 days has since expired and there has been no response from the Town Clerk.
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