The Auditor General should revisit these issues
Kaieteur News – When people are put before the Courts on charges of financial fraud and not guilty, this does not necessarily bring the issue of their charges to an end. A person can be deported on many grounds – a nexus defect, failure to prove the case or even innocence – but without resolving the remaining question of whether sums were misused or otherwise improperly used.
Many questions remain unanswered even after allegations have been dispatched. Those questions include those relating to whether any amounts have been stolen, lost assets or financial assets taken dishonestly for personal use.
The Auditor General’s role is to state in general whether government accounts accurately reflect the state of public accounts. He is not a fraud investigator although his work could identify red flags that could point to fraud. Whatever the courts decide, the Auditor General is interested in ensuring that public funds that are the subject of court proceedings are accounted for.
The Auditor General also has the authority to conduct special investigations. Where large sums are involved or where previous Auditor General audits did not find discrepancies, the Auditor General should exercise the right to conduct forensic audits of transactions, notwithstanding these matters after employing the Courts.
There are three issues that the Auditor General should pronounce although these issues have engaged the Courts. There are still unanswered questions about State assets or the acquisition of such assets and the Auditor General, as defender of these assets, should provide answers to these questions.
The first of these relates to an amount of $ 639M which was allegedly not accounted for by the Ministry of Public Services before 2015. People were charged for larceny by a public official but were acquitted of these allegations by the Court. The Court found that, in relation to an accused, the allegations were bad in law because the individual could not be considered a public official. The other person was acquitted because a connection could not be established with the events and activities on which the money was spent.
The criminal case is over but the mystery of what happened to those amounts remains to be solved. Were they actually used for the purposes for which they are said to have been used? And if not, then what happened to those amounts? The Auditor General needs to investigate this issue and bring this saga to an end.
Essentially, the issue of vehicles that are alleged to be misused remains. The Auditor General must pronounce this and seek views on the legality and propriety of any amnesty that the APNU + AFC government would have proposed.
The second issue relates to the alleged misconduct that occurred within the Guyana Rice Development Board and in which individuals were charged and laid before the Courts for failing to provide some access to a ledger relating to the amount of $ 52M was for Agriculture Life Skills Program. Three of the four people were acquitted because the Court found that no case had been brought against them. The fourth person is still before the Court.
However, the acquittal does not answer the question of whether the failure to put something in a ledger – an accounting record – meant that the funds were misused or were used for their intended purposes. The Auditor General should seek to reassure the public that the amounts have indeed been used for the purposes intended.
The third issue concerns the Guyana Elections Commission. This newspaper which uncovered the controversial acquisition of radio sets and forges, among other items, in the run up to the 2015 elections. The Auditor General’s office had flagged this acquisition and was due to pass on the report to these proceedings to the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice. The Commission had denied any wrongdoing in the matter.
Nothing was heard on this issue. And in the interests of transparency and accountability, this issue should be reopened.
The acquittal of persons or the failure to prosecute should not result in file closures. Where taxpayers’ money is involved, there is a need for assurance that public money and other assets are properly used and accounted for.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)