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Govt. compliant with procedure meant to correct atrocities committed at state agencies
– Jagdeo clarifies
Kaieteur News – Vice President (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo has clarified that government is not delinquent in complying with the process meant to correct the financial irregularities highlighted in the Auditor General reports.
His comments came on the heels of an accusation made by Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Jermaine Figueira.
Vice President, Bharat Jagdeo
Figueira accused the Government of dragging its feet on implementing measures to correct the repeated skullduggery perpetrated at the level of State agencies.
He claimed that this is owing to the government’s failure to adhere to the Parliamentary Standing Orders which stipulates that recommendations to help address those irregularities are to be made via a Treasury Memorandum which has to be laid in the Parliament by the Minister of Finance.
The Treasury Memorandum contains recommendations for accounting officers to address the repeated financial and managerial anomalies that were identified by the Auditor General.
Addressing reports that Government has failed to lay over the Treasury Memorandum to the Parliament at a press conference on Thursday, VP Jagdeo said that the Government has done its part by submitting the Treasury Memorandum to the Clerk of the National Assembly for it to be placed on the Order Paper.
He said too that the Treasury Memorandum pursuant to resolution No. 46/2022 dated November 30, 2022 on the public accounts of Guyana for the year ending 31st December 2016 was submitted on February 24, 2023.
PAC Chair, Jermaine Figueira
According to Jagdeo, the Government is now waiting on the PAC Chair to move a Motion in Parliament so that the next memorandum can be laid over to the House.
Jagdeo said: “The fact of the matter is that only the 2016 has so far been adopted by the National Assembly. After a resolution [is] passed…. The Minister of Finance within 90 days has to submit his Treasury Memorandum. This was done and the Minister has submitted his Treasury Memorandum on 24 February 2023.”
He continued: “So the 2017 and 2018 reports…it is Mr. Figueira now needs to go to the [National] Assembly and move a Motion and the Motion have to be debated and only when the debate is concluded then the Clerk can issue the resolution and thereafter the Minister of Finance has 90 days to submit the treasury memorandum. So the Minister of Finance cannot submit a memorandum now, if the PAC Chair has not done his part.”
On Thursday, Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs told Kaieteur News that he received the Treasury Memorandum and it will be placed on the Order Paper and subsequently laid at the next sitting of the National Assembly.
Isaacs added that there was no sitting of the National Assembly since he received the document. He received the Memorandum on February 24, 2023.
The document showing that the Treasury Memorandum for the 2016 report has been handed over to the Clerk of the National Assembly to laid in the House.
Meanwhile, in response to the explanation proffered by Jagdeo, A Partnership for National Unity +Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Member of Parliament (MP), Ganesh Mahipaul said that the Opposition members cannot be blamed for raising the allegation against the government.
“We have had no parliament for the longest while so if it is submitted to the Clerk to be placed on the Order Paper but not laid or circulated to MPs, there is no way of us knowing this,” he said.
Mahipaul had also called out the government for flouting the parliamentary Standing Orders to help address the irregularities highlighted by the Auditor General’s report.
In a press statement issued two weeks ago, Mahipaul had disclosed that the issue dates back to recommendations made for the 2016 Auditor General Report. He explained that the PAC has presented, debated, and adopted a report on the audited public accounts of Guyana up to the year 2016.
He had accused the government of failing to follow through with the process to table the Treasury Memorandum that is necessary to help correct the wrongdoings committed at the level of State agencies.
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