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‘Get tough on errant public officials’
– transparency advocate urges Govt. to sanction officials found culpable by PAC, Auditor General
Kaieteur News – Overseas-based Guyanese, Dr. Jerry Jailall believes the Guyana Government can change the culture of financial irregularity by doing what is necessary to ensure those culpable of wrongdoing are sanctioned.
Dr. Jailall said this is especially in regard to the findings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Auditor General report. In an invited comment, Dr. Jailall said that while the PPP Government always asserts that it stands for accountability and transparency, it has failed to act with “due diligence,” and utmost speed to send “strong signals,” to those charged with financial mismanagement.
Dr. Jerry Jailall
The transparency advocate pointed to the fact that over the years, the system was subject to significant abuse and major violations, as reflected in successive reports of the Auditor General, without evidence of sanctions being imposed on the concerned officials. According to Dr. Jailall, both the Government and the Opposition must be willing to enforce sanctions when there are clear breaches and malfeasance through acts of omission and commission.
He said, “It is simply unacceptable what has been going on under both the PNC and PPP that the Auditor General’s reports and Public Accounts Committee reports have identified financial irregularities involving hundreds of millions of dollars, and nobody goes to jail or are sanctioned.”
Further, Dr. Jailall noted that the recent call by Opposition members for Government to impose sanctions for breaches of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act of 2003, the Procurement Act of 2003, and the Stores Regulation. He noted that, “It should not be that the Opposition should have to goad the Government side into urgent and timely action. Hopefully, those responsible for tardiness in enforcing the laws would respond speedily.”
Disturbing financial transgressions by budget agencies which are documented year after year by Auditor General (AG) Deodat Sharma, in his reports, points to the need for serious action to be taken so as to protect taxpayers’ dollars and significantly reduce wastage. In the past, the PAC – the standing committee that exercises supervisory oversight of the functioning of the Audit Office has highlighted the need for weighted sanctions. The Committee exercises powers in keeping with the Evidence Act, Chapter 1:08, which allows for the summoning of witnesses to give evidence and/or provide documents to it. It also has penalties for non-compliance without proper reason. The PAC had noted that not only are the wrongdoings by the AG highlighted but that there is no record of Accounting Officers ever being sanctioned for inefficiency, fraud, or dereliction of duty, which has allowed a certain culture to grow.
The PAC said that over the years, there have been a number of challenges regarding Budget Agencies. It was observed that across budget agencies, Accounting Officers and/or engineering staff appear to persistently sign off on incomplete projects. According to the PAC, Accounting Officers were found in many instances, not implementing appropriate measures to avoid the recurrence of overpayment. Compounding the situation is the fact that Government Agencies seemed reluctant to use the performance-based gratuity (specifically the withholding of increments) of Accounting Officers as a means of promoting efficiency. The Committee said too that the recycling of Accounting Officers who had been cited for inefficiency from one agency to another remains an irritant. It was also observed that in numerous cases, Performance Bonds and Insurance were seldom utilized as surety by Ministries/Regions against shoddy and incomplete work done by contractors. In this regard as well, it found that there is a lack of clearly defined policies as it relates to invoking the Insurance and Performance bonds at the appropriate time. “Log Books not being properly maintained continues to be a perennial problem across Ministries/Departments/Regions,” the PAC underlined in a statement.
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