The Public Accounts Com-mittee (PAC) of Parliament is concerned that the funds from the Guyana Lotteries continue to elude the Consolidated Fund, four years after then Auditor General Anand Goolsarran had pronounced on it in strong terms.
The language has been softened in subsequent reports.
Speaking to this newspaper on Monday, member of the PAC Winston Murray said that although the PAC’s remit lies outside of this issue, since its deliberations were focused on matters arising out of the Auditor General’s report, it was concerned about the breaches of the constitution that came about as a consequence of the government’s actions.
A sum of 24 cents in every dollar of lottery proceeds is paid to the government, and this is managed by the Office of the President. Among the undertakings funded by the Lotto funds is the President’s Youth Choice Initiative (PYCI), a youth project scheme that has been criticised for being ill timed and executed. Sums totalling over $800M have been spent on a number of projects in many parts of the country.
Murray explained that the PAC’s Terms of Reference limited it to the examination of the Auditor General’s report on government ministries, departments and agencies with the intention of making recommendations on whether or not the agencies had expended monies in accordance with the approval given by the National Assembly.
But he said that the PAC could pronounce on whether or not public funds had been used according to law.
“For this, we take our starting point from Article 217 of the constitution; to the extent that the Auditor General’s Report for 2004 points out that this is not being complied with, we can comment,” Murray said.
This article reads: “All revenues or other monies raised or received by the Government (not being revenues or other monies that are payable, by or under an Act of Parliament, into some other fund established for any specific purpose or that may, by or under such an Act, be retained by the authority that received them for the purpose of defraying the expenses of that authority) shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Fund.”
Murray said that the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA) in sections 37 and 38 showed what could be considered public monies and the Lotto funds fitted the bill.
“Government is saying that it properly accounts for the monies received under the Lotteries Act in that the funds when expended by the Office of the President are audited and therefore there is public accountability. The PNCR is saying that this can be no substitute for the satisfaction of a constitutional requirement,” Murray said.
He said that with the modus operandi of the Office of the President with regard to the Lotto funds, the fiduciary oversight function of the National Assembly was being cast aside. “We [the PAC] have been shut out from asking questions,” Murray said.
David Patterson of the Alliance for Change told this newspaper that although the PAC did not have a formal position on the matter, the way that government was using the Lotto funds was improper.
Writing on the 2004 public accounts, then Auditor General Anand Goolsarran stated that in previous reports, he had had cause to highlight the Ministry of Finance’s failure to pay over government’s share of 24 per cent of the proceeds of the Guyana Lotteries to the Consolidated Fund. These funds were instead paid to a special bank account and this was used to meet public expenditure without parliamentary approval, the report said.
Goolsarran stated in the report that he had discussed the issue with the head of state, “who had agreed that at the end of each year transfers would be made to the Consolidated Fund to the extent of funds utilised from the Lotteries Account.” It was agreed at the time that a corresponding supplementary estimate would be passed in the National Assembly to ensure parliamentary approval of the expenditure and its recording in the Public Accounts.
Goolsarran had recommended in the 2003 report that the Ministry of Finance take appropriate measures to close the bank account in which the Lotto monies were being held and transfer the balance to the Consolidated Fund. “Therefore, the Ministry should ensure that Government’s share of the proceeds of the Guyana Lotteries was paid over directly to the Consolidated Fund.”
Murray lamented the fact that since Deodat Sharma took over as Auditor General acting from the end of 2004, the reporting on the Lotto funds was very innocuous, lacking the direct charge and full frontal manner that Goolsarran had employed.
For the years 2004 and 2005, the reporting on the Lotto funds simply stated the legislation by which the fund was set up and the agencies and projects that had benefited from the monies as allotted by the Office of the President.
