Volda Lawrence: `There are sinister movements in terms of contracts because the Auditor General staff went to a particular institution: couldn’t find a wall, couldn’t find windows, couldn’t find grill work but then after he went back subsequently, after they came before PAC, the wall appeared, the windows appeared, the grill work appeared. Let us be honest because these people are robbing our country’
Government’s failure to submit their nominees for the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) was cited again as the National Assembly yesterday adopted the report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the public accounts of Guyana for 2006.
Chairman of the PAC, Volda Lawrence noted that the PPC is an important body in securing and procuring items and must come into being. She pointed out that the Constitution – 10 years ago – says that there must be one. “The government sent and recalled their submissions after several discussions and to date they have not resubmitted…their nominees’ names”, she said, rebutting statements by PPP Parliamentarian, Bibi Shadick that there were discussions between the government and opposition on this. “At no time in the recent months were we told at the committee level that there are discussions between the government and the opposition because…there are no discussions going on between the government and the leader of the opposition on the (PPC) nominees”, Lawrence said. Her statement was supported by PNCR leader, Robert Corbin.
Lawrence said that the government has shown no interest in bringing the PPC into being and this failure has stymied the work of the PAC. A problem arising out of the non-existence of the PPC is the non-compliance of Ministries and agencies at various levels with the public procurement Act and the breach of tender board procedures particularly the splitting of contracts, Lawrence said. She asked the government to give consideration to their nominees for the PPC.
She noted that that many of the issues highlighted in the 2006 report have been overridden by time and events. Lawrence said that there continued to be various levels of non-compliance with the existing tender board regulations relating to the procurement of goods and services and undertaking of works, both capital and current, by some agencies. She cited that Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Legal Affairs and Regions, Three, Seven and Ten as those who disregard the Public Procurement Act.
Overpayment
Another “perpetual problem” is overpayment to contractors, Lawrence said. “This practice continues unabated. We are yet to hear of any Ministry or agency receiving a successful judgment against a single contractor or any officer being surcharged or disciplined for making substantial advances or payment upfront to contractors”. She said that the PAC has concluded after interviewing several accounting officers and staff of various ministries and agencies that “there is collusion between staff and contractors to defraud the Guyanese people of large sums of money”. Reading from the report, she said that: “The PAC recommends that officers and consultants who affix their signatures of completion in which overpayments are found should be sanctioned or surcharged where necessary”.
Meantime, Shadick noted that the issues discussed in the report are four years old. She said that she has noticed that every year when the Auditor General’s report comes, there are about 15 “prior year” matters and two “current year” matters so they are usually trying to resolve “things that happened ten years ago sometimes, sometimes 20 years ago”. Shadick said that she is disturbed at the non-establishment of the PPC but said that there have been discussions between the government and opposition “at some high level” and the names from the government side have not been forthcoming because the names that the government wants to put are names that they have confidence in but are not finding favour with the opposition.
Not accurate
Shadick also ripped into the AG report saying that there are times when information in the report is not accurate. She said that the committee places reliance on the AG and what is contained in the report but “I have found in too many cases that reliance was misplaced”.
“I find that if there are two cases that are misrepresented by the AG, that’s two cases too much. We need to be able to rely on the AG report. And that is not always the case”, Shadick said. She declared that overpayments are noted in the AG report much too often. She said in the 2007/8 reports, instances were found where there were not really overpayments but also very clear cases when there was. She added that over the years, improvements have been seen in the way accounting officers deal with the money they are given and their accounting.
AFC MP, David Patterson pointed out that the entire management staff of the Audit Office has not been confirmed to their positions and the staffing level at the Audit Office is 55%. He said that there are several “prior year” matters in the current report because they were never rectified, citing the procurement practice of the Ministry of Health. “Making mention that there are several prior year matters in the current report only seeks to highlight there are only very few other ways by which our agencies can digress. They’ve committed all the sins previously and there are no new sins to be committed”, he said. He also cited the attitude of accounting officers citing the Ministry of Public Work’s Walter Willis’ and the non-submission of information. Three years ago, Willis was asked about a certain project and to date, he has not provided it, Patterson said.
In closing, Lawrence, responding to Shadick, said that if “prior year” matters have not been solved, it remains on the books. She also cited the attitude of accounting officers saying that some of them feel that because the PAC cannot sanction, they show by their behaviour and body language that they don’t care about the PAC. “There are sinister movements in terms of contracts because the Auditor General staff went to a particular institution: couldn’t find a wall, couldn’t find windows, couldn’t find grill work but then after he went back subsequently, after they came before PAC, the wall appeared, the windows appeared, the grill work appeared. Let us be honest because these people are robbing our country”, she said. “One set of people are getting rich and other people cannot enjoy what should be given to them”.
