5 down, 16 more to go – Sharma reports

State forensic audits

…as investigations wrap up

Several of the series of forensic audits launched into the various State agencies across Guyana are on the verge of wrapping up, according to Junior Finance Minister Jaipaul Sharma.

During a telephone interview with the Guyana Times on Tuesday, Sharma disclosed that the Ministry was in receipt of preliminary reports from five agencies and that the draft reports from 16 agencies were still to be submitted.

“Some are completed, some are in the stage of completion,” the Minister stated, however, he declined to comment on which entities’ probes have been completed and which still had audits ongoing.

Some of the agencies in the auditing lineup are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC); Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC); the Guyana Gold Board (GGB); the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) and the Guyana Oil Company (Guyoil). Meanwhile, the Minister explained that the preliminary reports will have to be reviewed but if glitches were still discovered, then the probe may have to be reopened.

“They are still under review and additional works may arise,” Sharma said, referring to the five reports that were submitted.

The A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Administration, upon ascension to office, had launched in-depth forensic audits into several State agencies across the country for the purpose of “understanding” how the agencies work and to detect the existing malpractices and develop initiatives that can address them.

Asked about the discoveries made thus far, Sharma said he was not at liberty to discuss that information. Previously, Sharma had told this publication that the findings were not for public disclosure but were for “internal purposes”.

However, he explained that once Finance Minister Winston Jordan reviews the reports, they would then be distributed to the relevant Ministries who can then decide if they want to reveal the reports to the public.

Moreover, during the recent interview, he made it clear that the audits were not intended to go after the former Ministers of Government, but were to understand the workings of the relevant agencies since the coalition hardly had any knowledge of the financial and operational status of the various agencies.

In fact, he posited that the Asset Recovery Unit would be the entity that will “go after” the former Ministers and “to find out how much the Ministers thief”.

Challenges Sharma explained that there were many challenges that he encountered on daily basis – which is contributing to the holdup of the outstanding audit reports.

He vented that the management of some of the various agencies were not cooperating with the auditors in the sharing of the necessary information.

Sharma explained that every time a problem arises where management engages in delay tactics to hand over the required information, he would then have to write to the respective Ministers for them to intervene and ensure the documents are provided so the auditors can continue their work.

“That’s why we have to send some of them on leave, so we can facilitate the investigations because even if they are here, they are going to give the auditors a hard time,” Sharma stated.

He explained too that several of the persons who have valuable information that would be needed for the auditor reports were hardly unavailable.

“It’s hard to get a hold of them for the cooperation and so we have another problem there that needs to be addressed,” he stated.

Completed While Sharma was holding out that he would not disclose the names of the agencies whose audits were already completed, he had previously announced that the audit into the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was completed.

According to Sharma, the draft report showed that there were several offline accounts being utilised and that these findings were very amiss. Sharma had reported that some of these agencies were not mandated to have offline accounts, but the revenues earned were to be placed into the Consolidated Fund.

Therefore, the discovery of the offline accounts at the EPA was worrying, Sharma had noted.

He had also reported that a preliminary update into the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) revealed that the Agency collected billions of dollars which were not transferred into the Consolidated Fund. According to Sharma, this was unusual and NICIL would have been required to explain the reasons for this action.