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Bar agencies that fail to account for public spending – Ram

Dec 05, 2018 News

Agencies that are not operating in outside the realm of transparency and accountability as it relates to spending should not benefit from the disbursement of public funds.
This view is expressed by Political Commentator and Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram.
Ram was at the time commenting on the 2019 budgetary allocations for the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) under the Ministry of Business.
During the budget debates in Parliament, on Monday, Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin revealed that for 2019, the GTA and the Department of Tourism will receive budgetary allocations of $305M and $93M respectively. However, it was also revealed during the debates that spending for a number of agencies, including the GTA, were unaccounted for by the Auditor General.
In his report for 2017, Auditor General (AG) Deodat Sharma highlighted the fact that the GTA has failed to submit financial statements to be audited since 2005.
The AG’s 2017 report had recommended that the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Business, make efforts to have the outstanding statements laid in the National Assembly and the Audit Office for adequate examination.
Alluding to the recommendations made in the AG’s report, Ram in an invited comment stressed the importance of having each agency accountable for its expenditure.
“We cannot have agencies collecting monies without a trace of where the monies are spent. I think this is clearly a problem across the board. More consideration should be given to which agency benefits from the budget.”
The government should have some mechanism in place to stop these agencies from collecting monies, especially when there is no trace of their spending.
“If these agencies are not accountable for their spending, why allocate the funds?” Ram asked.
Similar sentiments were expressed by President of Transparency International, Dr. Troy Thomas. Briefly commenting on the issue, Dr. Thomas noted that agencies across the board must account for public monies.
“This is not an issue for just one agency. Therefore, the method of ensuring accountability should be applied across the board.”
On Monday, Minister Gaskin told the National Assembly that there has been a steady increase in the budgetary appropriation for the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) from $123M in 2014 to over $300M in 2019.
He reminded that the responsibility for tourism development in Guyana falls under the Ministry of Business, and is carried out by the Department of Tourism and the Guyana Tourism Authority, with the Department being responsible for policy and strategic direction and the Authority responsible for implementation in the areas of marketing, product development and licensing and regulation.
Gaskin said, “And just as an aside, when I inherited responsibility for this agency, it had never, I repeat, never since its inception in 2002, presented to the National Assembly, its audited financial statements.
“It did not even have audited financial statements for the years 2002 to 2015, and we have had to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort going back and putting this in order, and we anticipate that sometime in 2019, we will finally be up-to-date with the annual reports for all the agencies of the Ministry of Business.”
The Business Minister pointed to the scant regard that the previous administration gave to accountability and transparency while in government.
“I also wish to reassure this House that while we may be spending much more money on tourism than the previous government, we are also ensuring that there is accountability and transparency in the spending of that money.”

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