Former President Bharrat Jagdeo

– identifies executive lawlessness in politically-motivated State Audits

By Devina Samaroo

Former President Bharrat Jagdeo announced that the opposition will precipitate what he called a “massive scandal” surrounding the haphazard manner in which it decided to embark on the execution of State Audits since it came to power back in May this year.

As a result, the A Partnership for National Unity/ Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) administration could facing severe legal actions over the unprincipled State forensic audits it has launched into several State agencies in the country.

While not against forensic probes into the State accounts the prior administration had overseen, former President Bharrat Jagdeo said once the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) gets into Parliament, it will waste no time in informing the international accounting bodies about the illegal nature in which these audits were initiated.

Foremost, Jagdeo pointed out that there was not even a public procurement process to contract the accountants who are currently conducting the audits. Notably, two of the contracted auditors, former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran and chartered accountant Christopher Ram are known to be staunch supporters of the current government and in consequence, staunch critics of the PPP/C. Many have argued that the lack of transparency regarding the hiring of these two individuals and the actual hiring of them, knowing their political bias, presents a clear conflict of interest as it relates to the audits.

“We in the PPP will support any forensic audit but for a forensic audit to be fair and to do its work to find corruption, you have to have the skills to do that and I submit that these two persons, they are political operatives. They do not have the skills to practice forensic audits…We are in favour of hiring a reputable international company, in a transparent process to do this, to do forensic audits of all of our accounts,” Jagdeo posited, noting that the work of Goolsaran and Ram will not be credible.

When asked why the Government did not publicly advertise for professionals for this job, Junior Finance Minister Jaipaul Sharma, who is leading this operation, had noted that time was against them. He explained that Government needed to get this underway as soon as possible and if it had to go through the established  process, too much time would have been wasted causing a late start in the audits.

This, Jagdeo noted, is one aspect of the illegality and corruption that occurred in relation to these audits.

“This audit will run us probably into $150M…Imagine if we had handpicked two pro-PPPC people and give them contract without no public tender that could be $150M,” he argued, showing the double standards that exist in the society.

Another legal flaw, Jagdeo contended, is the fact that the Government is undermining the Audit Office of Guyana.

“We know that the audit is illegal because our laws do not allow anyone outside the Audit Office to conduct audits and assign audits to other people…They are also calling on other people to do the audits and the Audit Office is the only one allowed to do it,” he stated.

Sharma had explained that Government decided not to use the Audit Office for this purpose as it did not want to overburden the entity with “extra work”.

It was explained that discussions were held with the Auditor General Deodat Sharma and it was mutually agreed upon that the Audit Office will not conduct the State forensic audits.

“It would be unfair to the Audit Office to give them additional work,” the Minister asserted.

But Jagdeo contended that this is illegal as it undermines an important constitutional body.

And moreover, Jagdeo said these individuals do not even possess the requisite skills to conduct the audits.

“Normally when you do an audit, you get all your findings and you submit a management letter and the management responds to your findings…But everyday they are releasing little bits to the newspapers to make it a political process,” he highlighted.

As a consequence of the above, the PPP/C will be having Goolsaran and Ram brought before the Public Accounts Committee where the criteria for their selection will be put under scrutiny. He said the individuals will have to provide the detailed terms of reference being used, the procurement process through which they were hired and he requisite skills for the job.

“We will ensure that this is exposed through that mechanism,” Jagdeo persistently stated.

Jagdeo made it clear that the PPP/C is not against any forensic audit but it must be done in a professional manner. Moreover, he noted that the only reason the Party did not move to the courts to put an end to this illegal activity is because it does not want the Guyanese people to think it is attempting to prevent “evidence of corruption” from coming to light.

“We don’t want people to think we have something to hide and that we are afraid of these audits and that is one of the reasons why we haven’t moved to the Courts to stop this audit because we don’t want people to think we are opposed to the audit,” he insisted.