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Guyana Post Office still to account for over $300M in old age pension transactions – AG Report
Kaieteur News – The Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) has failed to account for $314.872 million in old age pension vouchers for last year, the 2022 Auditor General (AG) report has revealed.
The audit office initially found sum of $516.261 million was owed by GPOC to the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security – which is responsible for the old age pension disbursement. However, further examination by auditors of the reconciliation statement received from GPOC for the month of December 2022 revealed that GPOC was actually indebted to the Ministry in the sum of $314.872 million leaving a difference of $201.389M between the Cash Book summary and the GPOC Reconciliation Statement.
According the 2022 report, the Head of Budget Agency discovered there is a variation in the amount indebted by the GPOC as recorded by the Ministry and the statement received from GPOC due to the transit time for vouchers to be received by the Ministry from the GPOC. “It should be noted that December coupons are received in January of the following year and recorded at that time in the Ministry’s Cash Book,” the report added.
The main office of GPOC in Georgetown
According to the document an additional $10.360M has not been resolved since the GPOC is claiming that the coupons were submitted to the Ministry but the Ministry has no record of this and it is not reflected in the Ministry’s Cash Book and Reconciliation Statement.
The Audit Office recommended that the Head of Budget Agency continues to reconcile the Old Age Pension Account with a view of having the unreconciled difference cleared and ascertain GPOC’s indebtedness to the Ministry.
In addition, the report pointed to an unreconciled difference of $115.931M, an amount was mentioned in the 2019 to 2021 Reports. At the time of reporting in September 2023, the difference remained the same.
The $115.931 million that was previously handed over to the GPOC for the encashment of old-age pension vouchers still remain unaccounted for, and will most likely have to be written off as unrecoverable since the Audit Office has deemed the reconciliation practically impossible.
According to the Audit Report, at the end of December 2019, records showed that the GPOC owed the ministry $944.367 million; however, the corporation’s records showed its balance as owing $732.684 million, a difference of $211.683 million.
Included in the $211.683 million was a recurring balance of $115.931 million deemed an unreconciled difference, and used as a balancing figure. The unaccounted sum was among several issues dealt with when the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) resumed meetings in May of this year.
The committee deliberated on matters in the 2019 Audit Report under the former Ministry of Human Services and Social Security. Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Shannielle Hoosein-Outar acknowledged that there were lots of errors with the ministry’s cash books, and going back for a number of years, the books were not balanced or prepared properly.
However, she affirmed that the books are being balanced correctly from month to month. The ministry currently has a total of 72,441 pensioners in its system, with old-age pension currently being $33,000 per month. A former Chairman of the GPOC, PAC member and Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill gave a reminder that some years ago a decision was taken to close the Ministry ongoing accounts and effectively draw a red line and restart the ministry’s books to ensure transparent accounting, going forward. He questioned how the ministry could still continue to be plagued with issues in its transactions with the GPOC.
- Cash Book, Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC), Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, Reconciliation Statement, transactions
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