Finance Minister accuses Auditor General of ‘pussyfooting’ in some probes

Oct 08, 2018 News

– says audits ordered by Govt. uncovered discrepancies Sharma should have found

Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan has questioned the ‘pussyfooting’ by Auditor General Deodat Sharma to pursue the unaccounted hundreds of millions from the PetroCaribe fund and other projects.
In an interview with Kaieteur News, Jordan said that the forensic audits, which were carried out after the Coalition administration was elected in 2015 have revealed questionable transactions, which should have been unearthed by the Auditor General’s Office.
“I mean bank accounts not kept…these are things that should have been easily picked up by an Auditor General’s office,” Jordan noted.
He said that the Minister of Finance has responsibilities, the Financial Secretary has responsibilities; the Auditor General also has responsibilities.

Auditor General Deodat Sharma

Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan

“He is a constitutional agency. You can’t tell him how to do his work, but at the same time not because you can’t tell him how to do is work means you don’t have public oversight of the work itself that he is doing and that is an area that he has been spared overtime,” the Minister said.
“When you would have gone through those forensic audits, the question has been raised how is it if those audits were being performed, why a simple thing like keeping two accounts was not found.”
Apart from the PetroCaribe fund, the Finance Minister asked ‘why the pussyfooting’ by the Auditor General on audits into Guyana’s hosting of CARIFESTA, the 2005 flood relief and the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
“Why isn’t the Auditor General gung-ho over trying to go and get those audits done?” Jordan asked.
PetroCaribe was an agreement struck between the governments of Guyana and Venezuela, where Guyana would receive concessionary prices for oil in exchange for rice. Monies received from the exchange deal would subsequently be transferred to the PetroCaribe fund, under the purview of the Ministry of Finance.
Some of the money was meant to be allocated to the payment of rice farmers and millers for rice produced to sustain the exchange.
However, the Government found that billions of dollars were missing from the PetroCaribe Fund, which was kept separate and apart from the Consolidated Fund.
The Government has blamed the situation on a “casual” and “callous” administration of the fund by the previous Government under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).
Jordan stated that the PetroCaribe Fund is a matter for the Auditor General.
A forensic audit report into the World Cup spending disclosed indications of poor record keeping, making it impossible to check financial statements.
The forensic audit report, prepared by accountant John Barnes, was handed over by Government to police for criminal investigation.
Among the questionable deals surrounding the World Cup was a contract for the supply of high-end vehicles – 13 sedans and seven Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), which was handed to a company registered on December 6, 2006 as Prestige Motors Inc.
According to the forensic audit report, a mere three weeks after the company was registered, it was paid $84M, representing half of the money for the supply of the 20 BMW vehicles.
The registration of that company and the timing of the payments were deemed suspicious, and were among several reasons why the current Cabinet ordered the audit report to be handed over to the police for a criminal investigation.