Gov’t fails to implement 174 of Auditor General’s recommendations

Dec 11, 2018 News

Each year, the Auditor General’s Office issues recommendations to Ministries, Departments and Regions that are designed at improving systems and practices at these entities as well as government’s overall governance and accountability mechanisms.
In 2016, 602 recommendations were made in the Audit General report. However, following up on the report, officials of the AG found that only thirty percent of the recommendations were partially implemented.
In the 2017 report, Auditor General, Deodat Sharma noted that each recommendation was reviewed to determine what action, if any, was taken by the respective accounting officers.
At the time of finalizing the 2017 report, 178 or 30% of the recommendations were partially implemented while 174 or 28 % of the recommendations were not implemented.
Overall, the Auditor General expressed concerns with the lack of action, since 58% of the recommendations have not yet been fully implemented. In addition, in many instances, recommendations are repeated each year without appropriate action and as a result, weaknesses and issues that impacted negatively on government governance and accountability mechanisms, continue to occur.
Once again, the AG charged the government through the Ministry of Finance, the Accountant General’s Department and the respective Heads of the Budget agencies, to take appropriate action and put measures in place to address the recommendations made in the prior reports as well as those issued in 2017.
In last year‘s report, the AG flagged a number of agencies over lack of accountability, overpayments and other financial irregularities.

Auditor General Deodat Sharma

In one report, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) prepared, certified and paid a contractor $17.830M for works, which had not yet commenced on the site.
The project was reportedly a $52.6M project for the construction of a timber wharf, approach and floating raft at the Guyana Defence Force Coastal Battalion, New Amsterdam, and was awarded by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) to the lowest and most responsive of three bidders. The Engineer’s Estimate was $54.508M.
The GDF provided a response, which stated that “The Head of Budget Agency indicated that the Force is working to recover the overpayment by September 24, 2018, in that the contractor will present a cheque for the overpayment in the name of the Finance Officer, GDF.
However, the army is yet to confirm whether the necessary steps were taken to recover the monies.
In another instance, over $52M was unaccounted for under the Ministry of Education’s school feeding programme.
Then in the 2016 report, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was found in breach of the procurement regulations.
The AG report focused on the now infamous $100M purchase of communication radios, as well as millions more paid for toners for printers, and nippers for ballot boxes. GECOM has thus far failed to address the concerns of the AG.
The non-implementation is nothing new. Just over 379 recommendations were made in his 2014 Audit Report. Sharma had said that he and his team reviewed each recommendation to determine what action, if any, was taken by the respective Accounting Officers.
Sharma said that to his disappointment, at the time of reporting, 115 recommendations, which represent 29 percent of his overall recommendations were partially implemented, while 223 representing 56 percent were not implemented. Therefore, only 15 percent of the recommendations were implemented.
Also, in another report, Sharma said, “My Report for 2015 has 442 recommendations, of which, 62 or approximately 14 percent were in relation to overpayments on construction works and related issues. Of the 62 Recommendations, 31 or approximately fifty percent were in relation to contracts that were awarded and or completed in 2015, with overpayments valued $36.197M.”
Most of the recommendations made by the Audit Office have been ignored. Only a small percentage of that which was recommended in 2014 was fully implemented; it was no different for 2015 and the trend continued in 2016.
Four hundred and forty-two recommendations were made in my 2015 Audit Report. We reviewed each recommendation to determine what action, if any, was taken by the respective Accounting Officers. At the time of reporting, 160 or 38 percent partially implemented, while 91 or 22 percent were not implemented.”

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