Mayor wants special audit of City Hall’s 2019 spending

Aug 19, 2020 News

– says Council working to realize promise of accountability

Auditor General, Deodat Sharma

City Mayor, Ubraj Narine

City Mayor, Ubraj Narine is calling on the Auditor General (AG) to scrutinize the 2019 expenditure of the Georgetown Council, a call that comes in the wake of criticism leveled against the City’s management of $300 M annual subvention provided by central government.
Responding to the news reports of which alluded to claims by the new Minister of Local Government, Nigel Dharamlall, that monies were unaccounted for, the Mayor clarified that this was not done under his tenure.
He noted that the Council has been working to improve the level of transparency and accountability needed.
Narine disclosed that the Council wrote Auditor General, Deodat Sharma on July 24, 2020 to have the books audited for last year. He said that to date, there has been no response from the AG’s office.
“So this report of $300M the Minister spoke about [in the media] that was unaccounted for, was not from my tenure that was for an old administration. I spoke to the Minister, this morning; he said that he was speaking about 2015, 2016 and 2017,” the Mayor added noting that he assumed office in January, 2019.
As such, Narine noted that under his tenure, the $300 M was well spent.
“We have all our records from 2019. When I took over in January, we met with the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Communities … it was actually outlined to me how I must spend this money as Mayor. The garbage trucks were bought, three tractors, the administration building which is under construction, and other areas including the $75 M which was spent in the constituencies. All of which was done when I first took office and all the monies were accounted for,” he explained.
In keeping with his pledge to improve the level of transparency within the Council, the Mayor said that he has been working with the council members to bring this into fruition.
“In 2019,” the Mayor added, “I told the people when I took office that under my watch this council will be working towards, transparency and accountability. We did not divert in any way from trying to do so. We want when money is spent at City Hall people must get value for their money.”
Narine also reminded that he inherited a Council which was over $6 B in debt.
“We had a lot of matters to work out. We had contracts that were given out to clean the cemetery, some of the documents I could not find. We were told that verbal contracts for millions of dollars were given out and there were no records so we tried to call in those people and have our engineers go on the ground to see if work was exactly what they claim for. I wasn’t the Mayor then, neither was the current Town Clerk in the position,” he reiterated.
As such, the Mayor said that he is adamant about having a special financial audit of the entire Council for year 2019.
“We want the public to know that City Hall is moving in the direction of accounting for the spending,” the Mayor said.
Meanwhile when contacted by Kaieteur News, Auditor General Sharma noted that he is in receipt of the request for an audit of the Georgetown municipality. Sharma explained however that the Mayor requested a special financial statement audit of the entire council. This he noted, is apart from the annual audit which is mandatory for all local government organs.
“What the Mayor is requesting,” Sharma stated, “is a financial statement audit of all the departments of the council. The issue with that is, the Council will need to provide records of its income and expenditure. Providing records of spending is something that Council has not been able to do in the past.”