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Civil society groups urges stricter enforcement of laws to punish errant public officials
– AG report exposes weak systems in Govt.
Kaieteur News – The Auditor General (AG) reports over the years have revealed rather troubling findings regarding the use of public funds which go unpunished. In many instances, there are over payments to contractors and failure to deliver goods on time, while no action is instituted to ensure there is no reoccurrence of same.
Against this backdrop, Our Wealth Our Country (OWOC) a civil society organization has said there is need for laws to be implemented to ensure such acts are not swept under the proverbial rug.
In a statement to the press, OWOC said that the AG report and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have often uncovered “widespread irregularities, possible fraud, likely deliberate malfeasance, lack of accountability and apparent attempts to fleece the Guyanese taxpayers.” However, the group believes this is not the worst part. “The worst part is despite all the revelations of funds not being accounted for, nobody is going to jail and punished for failing to do their jobs,” they said.
The body reasoned that Guyana is a country where most of the population is poor. While persons struggle daily to make ends meet, successive governments continue to fail to ensure that goods and services costing billions are delivered. Concluding that such practices are simply unacceptable OWOC noted, “We call on both the PPP and PNC to pass new legislation or enforce current provisions that allow for utmost punishment on those responsible for this state of affairs. No excuse can justify what’s happening.”
From the AG’s most recent report, published based on an assessment of the government’s 2021 expenditure, Kaieteur News highlighted that: ‘Hundreds of millions unaccounted for under flood relief programme’ and ‘New GPC gets over $7B in contracts from PPP Government but failed to deliver drugs worth over $478M’. It was also reported that ‘Public Works Ministry yet to receive $12.4M telephone network system six years after supplier paid in full’. In the case of the drugs still to be delivered, the watchdog body argued proper explanations must be provided since the monies have already been paid over.
Meanwhile, as it regards the telephone network system still to be received as well, that was paid for since the Coalition’s tenure, OWOC complained that the same story of lack of accountability is repeating itself under a different government. As such, the civil society group explained, “Our nation cannot afford to be buffeted by the PPP and PNC who seem to take turns at messing with public funds. OWOC calls on both the PPP and PNC to take all measures to put an end to this broken record of lack of accountability for billions of dollars.”
It added, “We do not accept the notion these are merely accounting lapses or simple failures to follow regulations. When billions of dollars are involved, and our people go hungry and live in persistent poverty, we must throw the book at those supervisors and Heads of Department under whose watch these acts of omissions or public malfeasance have occurred.” The group was keen to point out that Guyana must have honest and decent employees in charge of all public funds and wrongdoers must be punished severely.
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