Latest update November 23rd, 2024 1:00 AM
Feb 01, 2023 News
Kaieteur News – The Government of Guyana (GoG) is expecting the final report on the US$7.3 billion audit to be completed by March.
This is according to Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat. Bharrat during the Consideration of Estimates for Budget 2023 steered off of the regular programme to entertain questions on several issues raised by Shadow Natural Resources Minister, David Patterson.
The Opposition Parliamentarian told the House that in November 2022 it was reported that the second audit would be completed by the end of last year. To this end, he asked that the Minister say when exactly the final report will be ready and available and laid in Parliament.
According to Minister Bharrat, “The final report is due in March of 2023.” He went on to explain that there may have been some misunderstanding regarding the expected completion date for the expenditure review.
“I think from the inception when the contract was signed there was a bit of misunderstanding. In the contract it says 120 working days and I think there was a lot of misconception…that it would be 120 running days or calendar days, but its 120 working days,” the Minister explained.
He said that the local consortium would have benefitted from training opportunities in Oklahoma and Houston to aid in building capacity.
The Minister acknowledged that while there is a “slight delay” in the completion of the review process, it is with a view of ensuring Guyanese can conduct our own future audits. He said, “We can reach a stage where we are not auditing 2018 and 2019 but we can actually audit 2021 and 2022 or even half yearly audits once we have that capacity.”
Bharrat pointed out that while the country has skilled auditors, the locals are not familiar with the spending of the oil companies, hence the need to invest in capacity building.
The contract for the Exxon audit was signed on May 24 last for VHE Consulting which is a registered partnership between Ramdihal & Haynes Inc, Eclisar Financial, and Vitality Accounting & Consultancy Inc. The Local Consortium is supported by International firms- SGS and Martindale Consultants for the ‘Cost Recovery Audit and Validation of the Government of Guyana’s Profit Oil’ Share’.
President Irfaan Ali in November last year told this newspaper that the process was estimated to wrap up before the end of 2022, with the first report ready by December.
When the Head of State was questioned on the audit during a press conference on January 17, he told Kaieteur News “Well I can only tell you what you know.”
Kaieteur News also reminded the President of his promise that these audit reports would be released for public scrutiny and if the public can still look forward to this. He said, “The public can look forward to a lot of things and I’m not a person who walks back on my commitment to this country.”
The audit will cost Guyanese some US$751,000. Like President Ali, Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, had assured that the findings of the audit would be made public.
Nov 23, 2024
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