The new Government has managed to retrieve almost $10B lying in “old” bank accounts, a senior Government official confirmed yesterday.
In the past weeks, the Ministry of Finance and its departments have been conducting exercises to determine the state of the country’s finances.

Finance Minister, Winston Jordan

It is unclear why the previous People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government kept that amount of money lying around in virtually unused accounts.
Finance Minister Winston Jordan admitted, yesterday, that the “old” accounts could have potentially been open to fraud.
As a result the monies were transferred.
According to Minister Winston Jordan, the sum is estimated to be between $8B and$10B.
The issue of public funds not being deposited in the treasury has been raised over time by the coalition Government when it was in Opposition.
Financial analysts have argued that billions of dollars belonging to taxpayers were not captured in recent national budgets, in essence robbing Guyanese.
By not depositing it in the Consolidated Fund, the billions of dollars did not come under the oversight of the National Assembly and as such questions were raised over the spending.
The Opposition had vowed to correct the situation when it was elected.
There are billions of dollars lying, also, in several accounts of state companies that Government is working to transfer into the Consolidated Fund.

Dr. Ashni Singh

These include accounts belonging to the Lotto Fund, the Guyana Forestry Commission, the Guyana Gold Board, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, the Guyana Energy Agency and the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
Last weekend, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, disclosed that the process to transfer monies from a few accounts to the central account– the Consolidated Fund– has seen a number of transfers taking place.
The Minister made the disclosure shortly before the official opening of the 11th Parliament yesterday.
The issue had reportedly been raised in the last Parliament by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), an oversight body that is empowered to examine the report of the Auditor General.
The former administration had been allowing the funds to be managed under the Board of Directors of the different state companies.
However, there have been questions over the use of some of the funds.
In the case of GGMC, earlier this year the entity was preparing, based on a Cabinet decision of the PPP/C Government in January to transfer almost $3B to the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA).
The transaction was blocked by the court but it was a clear indication of the amount of monies that are not included in the Consolidated Fund, which is used as a basis to prepare the National Budget.
The Lotto Fund itself has been coming up for scrutiny because of the absence of an explanation of how those monies, which are Government’s share from Lotto sales, were being used.
The Lotto fund had been under the direct control of what was formerly known as the Office of President.
Perhaps NICIL had generated the most anger. That entity, under the direction of Winston Brassington, and by extension a number of former Ministers who were sitting on the Board of Directors, allowed billions of dollars to be spent on projects without the authority of the National Assembly.
It is believed that NICIL is holding onto billions of dollars also. It was headed by former Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh.
The new administration under President David Granger has initiated a number of audits into entities like the Guyana Gold Board, NICIL, the Guyana Revenue Authority and GGMC.
Some 30 state companies are also scheduled for audits to determine their financial health and determine the true state of the country’s economy.