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There seems to be no end to the allegations of corruption swirling around this administration
DEAR EDITOR,
The government-owned and controlled Guyana Chronicle recently carried a story announcing the grant of $6.5 million to 130 Rupununi youths involved in the APNU+AFC-sponsored Hinterland Employment Youth Service (HEYS) Programme.
According to the story, youths were drawn from eleven villages in South Central Rupununi, and eight in the Karasabai district.
The 130 youths are the second, and probably the last cohort to benefit from the HEYS Programme.
The Programme was launched in 2016. It replaced the Community Support Officers (CSOs) Programme initiated by the PPP/C administration. That Programme involved over two thousand Amerindian youths across the entire Region Nine.
Bread was taken from the mouths of the thousands of CSOs when they were dismissed summarily on the assumption of the APNU+AFC coalition to office.
CSOs were provided with technical training to assist their respective Village Councils implement developmental projects for the advancement of their village economies.
The APNU+AFC-sponsored HEYS Programme is aimed at enhancing the academic skills of the participants and later, to provide them with financial resources for small projects or existing businesses of their own.
According to reliable sources, persons selected to function as administrators and facilitators for the HEYS Programme were ‘hand-picked’.
Concerns have been expressed that neither of the two positions were publicly advertised thus denying suitably qualified persons from applying for, and possibly securing employment in one of the two positions.
But what was even more scandalous was the fact that in the 2018 Auditor General Report it was stated that of the $120 million budgeted for the 2017/2018 Programme, a whopping $60 million could not be accounted for. Nothing further was heard from government about the missing funds. The matter was never investigated.
Questions have also arisen in connection with the $60 million IAST/GOG-sponsored tomato project at Port Kaituma which continues to experience difficulties principally due to cost of production.
It is alleged that the $20 per pound being offered by IAST is insufficient to cover production and other related costs when compared to the more attractive $200 per pound being offered to farmers by other interested parties.
Here again, allegations of corruption have surfaced and are yet to be investigated by the police.
There seems to be no end to the allegations of corruption swirling around the APNU+ AFC coalition administration.
Observers have opined that recent corruption allegations brought to light exposing ministers at certain government agencies and departments have intensified pressures on the coalition’s leadership to come clean and to admit culpability in respect to these widespread corruption allegations facing the administration.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee
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