Govt. unable to restore $700M to Contingencies Fund
…APNU insists Finance Minister is liable
The Contingencies Fund is out by some $700M for which there is no approval for its replenishment. Commentators
Carl Greenidge
are holding the Finance Minister responsible.
Former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran, has said that the Minister is to be held responsible for what he calls a loss of public funds.
The Contingencies Fund is a sub account of the Consolidated Fund and allows for advances for emergency spending and subsequent approval in the National Assembly will facilitate this fund being replenished.
Between 2011 and today, some $700M has been disapproved by the House and as such cannot be replenished.
Shadow Finance Minister, Carl Greenidge, is the latest to weigh in on the debacle.
He insists that the money has been misappropriated and despite the fact that the Minister has said that the majority of the money has been approved, $700M is not an insignificant amount.
According to Greenidge, while the majority of the money has been approved, the “difference is what constitutes the crime.”
Greenidge is adamant that the issue is not whether the entire contingency advance was abused, “the fact is some proportion of that money, and in the Minister’s estimate, roughly a billion was spent without being able to convince the House that it was properly spent.”
According to Greenidge at the end of the day misappropriation is misappropriation.
Greenidge said that Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh, is a former auditor and in that capacity had he found instances where misappropriation would have taken place in whichever private company he worked, he would have had to recommend that the guilty party be charged.
He said that if such a rule is a rule which professionally would be applied in private companies for the use of funds, “why is he seeking to excuse himself from those laws.”
According to Greenidge, Guyana currently has an administration “that seems to feel that they are above the law.”
Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, in insisting that there has been no abuse of the Contingencies Fund, recently pointed to the fact that over the past three years he has tabled Financial Papers representing $9.4B in advances from the Contingencies Fund 92.2 per cent of which was approved by the opposition.
Using this logic, according to Dr. Singh, the Fund was not abused.
Former Auditor General Goolsarran was of the opinion that the Minister should consider himself extremely fortunate that the Assembly approved 92.2 per cent of the expenditure from the Contingencies Fund, but he cannot escape liability for the 7.8 per cent or $700 million, which was not approved.
According to the former Auditor General, “This represents unauthorised expenditure and a loss of public property for which appropriate sanctions are provided for under Section 76 of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act.
He noted that the section of the Act reads: (1) If a loss of public property should occur and, at the time of that loss, a Minister or official has caused or contributed to that loss through misconduct or through deliberate or serious disregard of reasonable standard of care, that Minister or official shall be personally liable to the Government for the amount of loss; (2) Where the misconduct or disregard of the person is not the sole cause or the loss referred to in subsection (1), the person shall be liable to pay only so much of the loss as is just and equitable having regard to the person’s share of the responsibility for the loss. If a loss of public property should occur and, at the time of that loss, a Minister or an official had nominal custody of that property, that Minister or official shall be personally liable to the Government for the amount of the loss.
Dr. Singh has insisted that there was no loss incurred by himself.
The sitting Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, in his 2012 report had stated that advances continued to be issued from the Contingencies Fund which did not meet the required criteria for such advances resulting in monies being drawn from the Fund and utilised to meet expenditure that did not meet the eligibility criteria as defined in the Act.
He noted too, that according to the Statement of Receipts and Payments of the Contingencies Fund, amounts totalling $4.7B were drawn from the Fund by way of thirty-nine advances.
“Previous reports highlighted instances where the criteria were not fully met for the granting of some advances.”
The Audit Office again recommended that the Ministry of Finance adopt stringent measures to ensure that there is compliance with the FMA Act concerning the criteria for the granting of advances from the Contingencies Fund.
