Acting Auditor General Deodat Sharma is still probing how an allocation of $90 million was spent by the Guyana Police Force during last year’s elections and he is unwilling to give a timetable for completion.
“We are not done,” said Sharma in a comment to the Stabroek News yesterday, whole noting that interviews were still being conducted with several persons involved. “There are a lot of issues to sort out,” he added.
Sharma also said that he attended a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) with a view to examining various ministries with regards to their audit.
Chairman of the PAC Carl Greenidge of A Partnership for National Unity had said some weeks ago that he would not have been averse to the PAC conducting a probe into the spending of the $90 million allocated to the police for the 2011 general and regional elections.
Sharma had told this newspaper on March 23 that he had officially launched an investigation into the expenditure of the allocation and would have made an announcement one month from that date. He, however, had also noted that the course the investigation takes along the way will ultimately determine when he is able to make a pronouncement and in what form.
Sharma had previously indicated that he might have dealt with the issue in the Auditor General’s Report on the national accounts for 2011, which would be due for release by the end of September.
Assistant Commissioner David Ramnarine had publicly said that he had not received any money out of the allocation, triggering questions about the spending and a rebuke by Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee for speaking out.
In a statement, Police Public Relations Officer Ivelaw Whittaker later rebuffed suggestions that there was impropriety in the handling of the monies and said that Guyana Police Force has said it could account for the money. Whittaker noted that during 2011, the police prepared a budget of proposed activities for the elections, which was submitted to the Ministry of Finance through the Ministry of Home Affairs. He said that subsequently, supplementary provisions were received during November 2011 in the sum of $90,649,200.
He said that of this amount, a sum of $39,641,200 was for the shortfall on voted provisions and $51,008,000 was received under the line item 6261 – Local Travelling and Subsistence – which catered for the feeding of police ranks during the inline period for elections. He noted that $8 million out of the $51,008,000 was to facilitate the cost of travelling expenses and the remaining $43,008,000 was brought to account by the police.
