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D’Urban Park to be fixed in next term-Jagdeo
Kaieteur News- The abandoned D’Urban Park will be fixed in the next term of the People’s Progressive Party’s Government, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has promised.
He said this was a part of the manifesto recommendations received by his party.
“What are we going to do about D’Urban Park? Everybody keeps asking about that. I’m talking about the manifesto. Remember, it was just manifesto promises. I was just talking about what we’re going to do in the next term, but the D’Urban Park I want to say we will rehabilitate it,” he explained.
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo.
Blaming the previous A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) administration for the current state of the park, he termed it a “monumental corruption” as “$600 million missing from it of the $1.6 billion that they said they spent on it… $600 million missing formally through the audit report.”
He said he could not say how much of the funds are missing, nevertheless the government needs to fix the park.
“So, I want to say to the people who have made the suggestions that we clean it up and fix it up, (this will be done) in the next term. Yes, that’s going to be done. It’s going to be… I think we’ve learned in the five years we had to let APNU have its monument to their five years in office,” he added.
Back in 2022, the Audit Office of Guyana undertook a special audit in accordance with Section 26 of the Audit Act 2004, on the construction of the D’Urban Park Jubilee Stadium. An interim report was issued on December 7, 2018 and the findings were reflected in the 2020 Auditor General’s report.
The report outlined that the construction of the D’Urban Park project commenced in 2015 in preparation for Guyana’s 50th Independence Anniversary which was to be celebrated the following year.
A private company named Homestretch Development Inc. (HDI) was created to implement the project. As at December 31, 2017, amounts totalling $1.150 billion were expended. However, payment vouchers to support expenditure incurred by the ministry totalling $70.610 million were not produced for audit examination.
As such, auditors noted completeness, accuracy, and validity of this amount could not be determined. Moreover, the Audit Office has once again recommended that the Head of Budget Agency submit the outstanding payment vouchers for audit.
In addition, the amount of $500 million was paid to HDI in 2017 by the ministry to enable HDI to meet its obligation to its creditors. However, there was no documentation attached to the payment vouchers to indicate the works done, supervisory checks carried out on the works, as well as certification that the works were satisfactorily completed.
Only the list of HDI creditors and government’s proposed payment allocation to each creditor was attached to the payment vouchers.
In the circumstances, the correctness, accuracy and validity of the payments made could not be determined.
Based on the report, Kaieteur News understands that the Audit Office had written the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure on July 19, 2018, requesting documentation detailing the works done, supervisory checks of the said works, as well as certification that works were satisfactorily completed.
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