Introduction
Today’s column resumes the review of the 2011 budgetary allocations to the principal ministries of government. Some of the ministries covered so far are the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance. 
It focuses on the Office of the President, the budget for which has jumped from $4.274 billion in 2010 to $7.175 billion in 2011, an increase of 68%.
This is even higher – percentage wise – than the increase of 64.3% in the Finance Ministry’s 2011 budget due to the expectation of proposed spending on LCDS projects, including equity spending on the Amaila Falls Hydro-electricity project.
All figures in millions of Guyana dollars.
Source: National Estimates 2011 and 2010.
Public policy? Not really
At first sight, it is striking that only in his last year as President has Mr Jagdeo seen it fit to set up a Public Policy and Planning functional unit in his office, and one naturally wonders whether this function resided in the past with him. But on closer examination the function falls far short of public policy, having as its stated objective “supporting and sustaining the successful transformational process of the Public Service through the necessary reform…”
The absurdity of it all becomes even more apparent when one looks at the impacts and indicators which the operations of the programme are designed to produce. These include reports to Cabinet, stakeholder consultations and documented research on public service reform in the Caribbean and elsewhere.
There is clearly an irony here – no president, perhaps other than Forbes Burnham, has done more to destroy the independence, professionalism and efficiency of the public service than President Jagdeo, and even if he is now seeking to correct his mistakes, he is clearly taking the wrong approach. To add to the irony, every one of the persons in this unit is a contract employee.
In his post-2006 term President Jagdeo realised how easy it is to bloat the public service with politically connected or useful persons and as a consequence the numbers of contract employees have grown inexorably since then. In 2011 alone the number of contract employees in the Office of the President has jumped from 106 to 144, a 26% increase, while over the period 2007 to 2011 it is a staggering 95% increase, as more and more party persons, their relatives and friends are placed on the payroll.
I know one person who told me that there simply were not enough desks for everyone and they had the option of working from home!
Missing line item
A recent expose of an order for spy equipment valued at $118 million (US$583,000) has raised some eyebrows, if only very fleetingly. The question though is where is the line item which is being charged with this grand sum? A reading of the 2011 Estimates does not help as the only line items in excess of this amount are Training and Subsidies and Contributions to local organisations. The Office of the President is known to control extra-budgetary funds well outside of the law and there is a possibility that whatever the spy equipment is, it may have been sourced from one of those secret funds.
It is easy to wonder and link some activities to the yet-to-be explained destination of more than $3 billion that had been lying for years in dormant bank accounts which were suddenly closed in July 2010.
Taken for a ride
The subventions too are paid outside of the law to some agencies that have an unenviable record when it comes to accountability and audit, including GINA, NCN and the Integrity Commission. In respect of the Presidential Guard, Castellani House and the Joint Intelligence Co-ordinating Agency (‘Spy Agency’), the exchanges between the Audit Office and Dr Nanda Gopaul, the administrative head of the Office of the President have reached a level of absurdity that has to be seen to be believed. Ever since at least 2004, the Audit Office has been drawing attention to the fact that departments of OP cannot be financed by subventions but only by operational programmes. For several years now, Dr Gopaul has given the same response, that the administration, ie, Dr Gopaul, has “written the Finance Secretary to have the matter rectified and is awaiting a response.”
If there is no answer for several years, there ought to be no reason for not discontinuing the subvention and terminating the services of the persons responsible.
The capital budget
The lion’s share of the $4,888 million budgeted to be spent in 2011 is for what is described as the Information Communication Technology project which entails the communication fibre optic networking system from Lethem to Georgetown, the construction of wireless and terrestrial networking systems from Moleson Creek in Berbice to Anna Regina in Essequibo. The total project cost is $9,607 million of which $1,200 million was spent up to the end of 2010.
Not surprisingly, both the fibre optic project and the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) project are surrounded in mystery, secrecy and controversy, and are not without concerns about impropriety and illegality. The fibre optic project it seems is not as innocuous as it is represented to be and there are persons with connections within the PPP hierarchy whom the project will benefit. Absent this, the government and GT&T could have worked out a much more cost-effective and mutually beneficial relationship but politics it seems is not that straightforward.
The OLPF project has caused the Office of the President some embarrassment as its statements have been found to be misleading as a consequence of subsequent revelations from persons within the project, including a former manager who was astounded at the money which was thrown at him! Volume 3 of the Estimates indicates that of the $4,347 million to be spent in 2011, $2,500 million will be financed by foreign grants/loans and $1,847 million will be financed by the government. All the persons employed in the project in 2011 are employed on contract. Moreover, given the nature and components of the OLPF, rules of accounting would deem some of the expenditure recurrent rather than capital.
Office of Climate Change
The Office of Climate Change cannot be identified at all in the Estimates under Office of the President. One therefore wonders about the accountability of the money that is being spent in running this office which we are told is responsible for managing the whole LCDS process. Indeed, the head of the unit, Mr Shyam Nokta claims that he is working for the unit and the country without remuneration, a claim which may be surprising but which surely does not apply to everyone else. The law requires that all public expenditure should be accounted for, even where it is grant-funded, but this it seems is not being done. This lack of transparency does not encourage and inspire confidence over the substantial sums that are likely to flow from the Norwegians and the more secretive Chinese and Indians.
Missing too are the payments from the lottery proceeds which the government adamantly refuses to place in the Consolidated Fund but which is spent without authority, accountability and any regard for accounting and audit principles.
Audit silence
One would have expected that with all the allegations of financial illegalities and improprieties enveloping the Office of the President, the Audit Office would wish to appear at least to be showing some interest. Indeed it should have had resident auditors there or ensured that there was a competent team of internal auditors. Not so. In 2009, the last year for which there was an Audit Office report, not a single transaction was referred to as being reportable. Does the Audit Office not know and consider the failure to have written contracts a reportable breach? Or the operation of unaccounted funds? Or breaches of the procurement rules? Or unaccounted advances?
If this was the case in 2009 alone, it might be excusable on the basis of rotation. But it has happened for all the recent years, a situation from which one should be able to draw the inescapable inference that as in so many different ways, the Office of the President is out of bounds. Maybe it is just too hard to audit.
