Mechanisms for requiring government agencies to account for external grant funds received after the Budget has been approved are not functioning

Dear Editor,

With reference to your editorial ‘The Norway funds’ (May 14), I wish to mention that on November 7, 2011, the Steering Committee of the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), which is comprised of representatives of the Governments of Guyana and Norway, approved the disbursement of US$5.94M to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for disbursement to Guyana for project related activities, plus administrative fees of US$140,000.
In addition, Norway approved US$1.06M to Conservation International for preparatory work as pass through funds for the GFC.

Out of the US$5.94M, US$3.2M was granted to the Office of the President of Guyana for ‘institutional strengthening.’ At the same time, US$3.6M was granted to the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) for Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV) activities.
On February 1, 2012 IDB approved the GRIF project for institutional strengthening.

On March 30 Minister Ashni Singh included in the 2012 Budget US$3.1M for the GFC from the approved GRIF funds. So the implication from the Appropriations Bill is that GFC had already spent US$500,000.

However, as the GFC has not laid annual audited accounts before the National Assembly, as it is required to do by its own GFC Act of 2007, GFC spending cannot be monitored by the National Assembly.

Similarly the US$3.3M, which does not figure in the National Appropriations Bill for the Office of the President, may also have been spent between February and March 2012.

This appears to signal a general problem with incoming grant monies that are disbursed and spent after one National Budget has been passed in the National Assembly and before the next Budget.

Mechanisms for requiring government agencies to identify and account for external grant funds received after the National Budget has been approved do not appear to be functioning.

Yours faithfully,
Janette Bulkan