Significant differences in the accounting records of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and that of the Accountant General’s Department for remittances from Guyana’s overseas missions have raised several questions, which the Bank of Guyana may be able to answer.
Director General of the MoFA, Ambassador Elisabeth Harper and a team from the ministry, were on Monday afternoon grilled by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the issue, as the committee perused the Auditor General’s report for 2007/2008.
The 2007 report stated that there continued to be differences between the records of the ministry and that of the Accountant General’s Department, for amounts remitted by Guyana’s overseas missions to the MoFA for onward transmission to the Accountant General’s Department. Such differences, the report stated, amounted to $81.9 million in 2007, while in 2006 and 2005 there were differences of $77.1 million and $89 million, respectively.
Remittances which are collected by the overseas missions are usually sent to the Accountant General’s Department through the Foreign Affairs Ministry and such remittances are deposited into the Consolidated Fund. According to the MoFA , remittances from the Guyana missions in New York and Washington are transferred to an account at the Bank of Guyana (BoG) from banks in the US, following which the money is transferred into the Consolidated Fund.
However, the PAC was told that there may be a procedural problem, and according to Harper, reminders were dispatched recently to the US-based missions to have issues which have been delaying the accountability process rectified.
She said that between 2005-2008, a sum of $415 million has not been reclaimed but has been accounted for via transmittal receipts, and of this total $31 million has been adequately accounted for via the Integrated Financial Management Information System (INFMAS). According to her, the MoFA has been urging the missions to transmit receipts of amounts sent here. The team told the committee that the ministry has implemented measures to bring the process in order from June this year, as a system has been implemented to this effect.
PNCR parliamentarian Winston Murray advised the ministry that the agency should address the matter individually, beginning with the remittances for 2008, which appears to be the highest, he noted, the sum being $160 million.
The committee was told that sums of money representing the remittances sent from the US-based missions were “lying” in an account at the BoG, and it was at this point that committee members appeared lost during Monday’s meeting, since neither the MoFA officials nor the Accountant General could state in whose name the account is written.
PPP parliamentarian Bibi Shadick stated that the issue appears complicated, as she asked whether, “the BoG would just sit with the remittance sum when it arrives there”. She said the MoFA officials do not appear to know how much money was in the account as she questioned whether the bank has been informed of the issue.
Murray said that the issue should not be as complicated as it appeared to be, noting that it was a “multi-source” problem, and he lamented that the matter “did not happen yesterday” and should have been resolved. He said such matters, “raise eyebrows cause it could be more than reclamation,” that may be at stake.
The MoFA team, giving a background on the issue, told the PAC that the agency encountered “problems” with the remittance procedure in 2001, and the agency was advised by the Accountant General’s department to channel all monies from the Guyana mission in the United Kingdom directly into the Consolidated Fund, while the US missions were advised to do so via commercial banks there.
The team stated that for the agency to bring the accounts into order, the Accountant General’s Department would have had to provide a credit advisory.
The PAC advised the MoFA team, with urgency, to inform the US-based Guyanese missions to transfer all remittances into the Consolidated Fund, the committee noting that the issue was of concern and should have been resolved.
