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Unauthorized vehicle collected $181M in army fuel – Auditor General 2019 report
Kaieteur News – According to the Audit Report of 2019, one unauthorized vehicle uplifted 887,800 litres of fuel from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) totalling a whopping $181.567 million.
But that is just one of the many shortcomings discovered of the GDF with respect to the purchase, reconciliation and storage of fuel.
The Auditor General (AG), Deodat Sharma, stated in his report that $547.219 million was expended for the purchase of diesel and gasoline, of which $528.692 million was paid for fuel in bulk.
With regards to bulk purchases, Sharma explained that the Force makes payments to GUYOIL. Whenever the need arises for fuel, the Force would then make a request GUYOIL for fuel to be delivered to its locations at Base Camp Ayanganna, Base Camp Stephenson at Timehri, and the Coast Guard Headquarters at Ruimveldt.
“The fuel would then be delivered to these locations by GUYOIL’s tankers. The drivers of the tankers would sign the respective invoices as having uplifted the fuel from GUYOIL, and upon delivery at any of the Force’s locations, the rank receiving the fuel would sign the respective invoices as receiving the fuel for the Force,” Sharma explained.
However, on 103 invoices, the report pointed out, an unauthorized vehicle bearing registration number, GHH 7538, uplifted the fuel.
Audit enquiries revealed that the vehicle was not owned by the force nor was it owned by GUYOIL. In addition, the AG said, there was no contractual agreement for the vehicle to uplift fuel on behalf of the Force.
The AG also made several other worrying finds.
He stated that included in those 103 invoices were 75 invoices totalling $130.861 million, which purports that gasoline was uplifted and delivered to the force.
However, the signatures of the driver and the customer receiving the goods “appear to be identical” indicating that the same person may have uplifted the fuel from GUYOIL and also from the Forces’ locations.
Similarly too, the AG pointed out, for the purchase of diesel, there were 23 invoices totalling $41.487 million where the signatures of the driver and ‘customer receiving the goods’ appeared to be identical.
Additionally, the report noted that the Coast Guard Headquarters at Ruimveldt has one concrete reservoir with the capacity to hold 1,000 gallons of gasoline. Strangely enough, audit checks revealed that on 26 instances, approximately 2,000 gallons of gasoline was delivered to that very location.
“As can be gleaned, on each of these 26 instances, the quantity of fuel delivered was twice the storage capacity of the reservoir,” Sharma stated.
Even more astounding, he added, was the fact that based on the invoice dates, multiple deliveries of approximately 2,000 gallons of gasoline were delivered on the same day to Coast Guard Headquarters at Ruimveldt.
“It should be noted that the gasoline delivered in these twenty-six instances amounted to $50.112 million. It should be mentioned also that based on the invoice dates, on one day, approximately 1,000 gallons of gasoline were delivered by a tanker registered to GUYOIL,” the reported said.
On that same day, a delivery of 2,000 gallons was also made by the unauthorized vehicle.
This further indicated that gasoline was delivered in excess of the Force’s storage capacity at its Coast Guard Headquarters, Ruimveldt.
The AG noted that his office was unable to verify whether the fuel was received by the Force.
Moreover, it was reported that the Goods Received Book for Camp Ayanganna was misplaced; whilst, the records for Camp Stephenson – Timehri, and Coast Guard – Ruimveldt were not submitted for audit.
Stock Ledgers were submitted for Camp Ayanganna; however, the receipts of fuel by the said vehicle were not recorded in these ledgers.
Attempts to conduct alternative audit checks proved futile; since, the gate-books in which the ingress and egress of vehicles are recorded were not submitted for audit.
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