Chartered Accountant and former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran is maintaining that the Treasury overdraft is indeed increasing at a worrying rate. He is also
Finance Minister, Winston Jordan
insisting that the overdraft is estimated to jump to $210B with Budget 2019.
According to Goolsarran, one merely needs to examine the Auditor General’s 2017 report for proof of this. His comments would come in wake of those recently made by Finance Minister, Winston Jordan. The economist had disputed Goolsarran’s estimates.
The Minister told sections of the media that the overdraft on the Consolidated Fund a few days ago was just $62.157 billion. On this premise, he said that it would be a stretch for anyone to say that the overdraft would be pushed to $210B with the 2019 budget.
Be that as it may, Goolsarran is maintaining his position.
In a statement to Kaieteur News, he said, “Having examined the reports of the Auditor General for the years 1992 to 2017, we estimate that the overdraft would reach $210 billion by the end of 2019. I had produced a table showing how we arrived at this figure. This table was compiled using the audited public accounts for the years 1992 to 2017 and the anticipated deficit for 2018 and 2019…”
Chartered Accountant, Anand Goolsarran
The Chartered Accountant added, “The Minister of Finance is reported to have disputed the above figure, claiming that the Governor of the Bank of Guyana has confirmed that as of December 7, 2018, the overdraft on the Consolidated Fund was $62.157 billion. Readers are, however, directed to page 479 of the 2017 Auditor General’s report, which shows the Statement of Current Assets and Liabilities of the Government as at 31 December 2017 prepared by the Accountant General and duly certified by the Minister of Finance.”
In that statement, Goolsarran explained that the new Consolidated Fund Account No. 407 and the old account No. 400 showed overdrafts of $109.1 billion and $46.8 billion respectively, giving a total overdraft of $155.9 billion. He said that readers are also referred to pages 28-29 of the Auditor General’s report where these two figures are repeated. He noted that there is a graph showing the movement of the overdraft on these two accounts from 2004 to 2017.
