Dear Editor,
The imbroglio, politically inspired and concocted, in respect of the recent confirmation of Mrs Geetangali Singh, the wife of the Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, in the office of Audit Director has indeed excited much public discourse. Unfortunately, in my humble view, none has taken the time or the effort to subject the relevant facts and surrounding circumstances to any mature analysis. Instead, conclusions have been arrived at, inferences drawn and judgment rendered in a most heedless, capricious and arbitrary fashion.
The Auditor General’s office was established by Article 223 of the Constitution of Guyana and is tasked with the responsibility to audit the public accounts of Guyana, all officers and authorities of the Government of Guyana, including, the commissions established by the constitution, the accounts of the Clerk of the National Assembly and of all courts in Guyana. Article 223 (3), mandates the Auditor General to submit his reports to the Speaker to be laid before the National Assembly.
Article 223 (5) provides for the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament to exercise general supervision and functioning of the office of the Auditor General in accordance with the Rules, Policies and Procedures Manual for the functioning of the office of the Auditor General as prepared by the Auditor General and approved by the Public Accounts Committee. Article 223 (6) obliges the Auditor General to prepare and submit to the Public Accounts Committee, reports, on a quarterly basis, on the performance and operation of the office of the Auditor General. Article 223 (7) requires the Auditor General to submit, annually, the copy of an Annual Systems and Financial Audit Report with respect to the office of the Auditor General to the Public Accounts Committee.
Significantly, Article 223 (4) provides that in the exercise of his functions, the Auditor General shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority. In order to solidify this independence, Article 222 (A) confers financial autonomy on the Auditor General’s office by making its funding a direct charge on the Consolidated Fund. Another layer of constitutional protection is accorded to the Auditor General by Article 222 which protects his remuneration package from any diminution.
In terms of legislation, the Audit Act confers upon the audit office a network of protection and functional autonomy, including delinking it from central government and making it almost self-regulatory, placing the Auditor General in charge thereof.
The clear intendment of both the letter and spirit of this complex and myriad fabric of protective statutory and constitutional mechanisms is to ensure the independence and functional autonomy of the Auditor General and his staff. This can easily be gleaned by Section 14 of the Audit Act No. 5 of 2004 where it states:
“14. (1) Subject to subsection (3), within the framework of the budget approved for the Audit Office, the Auditor General shall assess staffing needs, and appoint, pay, train, assign, promote, and discipline officers and employees in accordance with the Constitution, this Act, the Rules, Policies and Procedures Manual and any other law.
“(2) The officers and employees shall be appointed at such remuneration and on such other terms and conditions as the Auditor General may decide, within the framework of the budget approved for the Audit Office, taking into consideration the Rules, Policies and Procedures Manual.
“(3) The Auditor General’s appointment and discipline of all senior officers and senior employees shall be subject to approval by the Public Accounts Committee.“
From the exposition above, two things are beyond disputation. Firstly, the Auditor General and his officers are not accountable to the executive but to parliament. Secondly, the Auditor General and by extension, his officers, are not subject to the control or directions, and I dare say, interference, of any person or authority, including the executive and parliament.
It is against this background that the confirmation of Mrs Geetangali Singh must be viewed. Mrs Singh commenced her career at the Auditor General’s office in 1992 as an audit clerk and has since worked in that office, while achieving advanced qualifications along with successive promotions over the years. Today she ranks among the most qualified. In 2005, Mrs Singh was appointed to the position of Audit Director (acting). Therefore, Mrs Singh commenced functioning as Audit Director (acting) before her husband assumed the position of Minister of Finance in 2006. Significantly, Mrs Singh is but one of three Audit Directors functioning in that office. Mrs Singh functioned in this position from 2005 to June, 2012, without any known objections raised by the Public Accounts Committee over the last 7½ years, though she appeared frequently before the said committee and during this entire period, her connection to the Minister of Finance, by marriage, was a fact of public notoriety. The competent chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee over this period included the experienced Winston Murray and Ms Volda Lawrence, both of the PNCR.
On the June 25, 2012, pursuant to Section 14 of the Audit Act, the Auditor General brought to the Public Accounts Committee, for their approval, a number of appointments which he made, including the confirmation of Mrs Singh as an Audit Director. The Public Accounts Committee, in the exercise of its statutory function, and by votes of the members of that committee present and qualified to vote, granted their approval in compliance with the Audit Act. It is therefore manifestly plain that Mrs Singh’s appointment was in compliance with the statutory procedures and therefore valid and proper. The contention that a member of the committee was absent and that the government took advantage of that absence is both infantile and irrelevant.
The gravamen of the main objection to Mrs Singh’s confirmation is the fact that she is married to the Minister of Finance. Since no scintilla of evidence has, thus far, been produced which establishes or would tend to establish that there is a single verifiable instance of an actuality of conflict of interest, one is forced to presume that the allegation of conflict of interest is predicated merely upon the fact of this marital relationship and nothing else. In short, it is conflict of interest based upon perception and not actuality. Indeed, it is a fact of public notoriety that it is the very Auditor General’s office, where the same Mrs Singh has worked over the last twenty years, for seven of which she acted in the very position in which she is now confirmed, that has unearthed a number of financial irregularities and has posed several audit queries as it discharged its functions. The very opposition has made tremendous use of these irregularities and queries in their political pursuits. They continue to do so until now. As they did so, not once did we hear an objection to Mrs Singh’s functioning in that office or her connection to the Minister of Finance. This alone denudes their current posture of any bona fides and credibility.
Additionally, having not objected to Mrs Singh acting in that very position for the last seven years, one can forcefully argue that their protracted prior failure to object amounts to an acquiescence and creates in favour of the Auditor General and Mrs Singh, the benefit of a legitimate expectation that they will continue their no-objection.
Importantly, the Auditor General being imbued with the plenitude of constitutional and legislative protection to ensure his functional independence and autonomy, in the discharge of his official functions, has made an appointment which has been approved by the Public Accounts Committee. Once that appointment is made by the Auditor General and approved by the Public Accounts Committee, this attack by members of the legislature and their cohorts on the exercise of the Auditor General’s power to appoint his officers, amounts to an erosion of his independence and is tantamount to interference, which the Article 223 (4) of the constitution expressly forbids. Apprised of the relevant facts, the Auditor General made the appointment and the Public Accounts Committee approved it. Obviously neither saw Mrs Singh’s marriage as an impediment. They are the relevant agencies. Their functions cannot be usurped and independence undermined by extraneous influences.
In lay terms, a conflict of interest occurs when a person has the duty to make decisions affecting the welfare of others and the decision-maker’s self-interest is directly involved in the decision. In essence, conflicts of interest arise when individuals, although obligated by virtue of their positions to pursue one interest, suffer a bias that naturally leads them to pursue a contradictory interest. As I have stated above, no iota of evidence has been proffered to suggest that Mrs Singh is pursuing any contradictory interest. So esoterics aside, the contention is that Mrs Singh’s marriage, ipso facto, places her in a position of conflict of interest.
By analogy, one can look at other professional pursuits for guidance on this issue. In the legal profession with which I am familiar, conflict of interest situations occur on a daily basis when a lawyer acts for both sides in a conveyancing transaction. This conflict dissipates once there is full disclosure to both clients. The legal profession has seen several familial relationships on the bench and at the bar and the issue of conflict of interest and bias has invariably arisen. In Jagan v Burnham (1973) GLR 203, the brother of one of the judges in the matter was the lawyer appearing for one of the litigants. The conflict of interest/bias objection was taken. It was overruled. Again, in Mohamed Ali v Attorney General (1987) 41 WIR 176, one of the judges was the father of one of the lawyers who appeared. The objection was again taken. Again, it failed. In the text, Conduct and Etiquette at the Bar, Fifth Edition, at page 38, the following seminal passage appears: “It has never been considered improper for a barrister to appear before his father in the High Court, Court of Appeal or in the House of Lords; and it has long been recognized that there is no rule preventing counsel from practising at a Court of Quarter Sessions of which his father or near relative is chairman or deputy chairman or one of the justices…”
I dare say that, institutionally, for obvious reasons, the judiciary exacts far greater impartiality than the office of an Auditor General, yet, familial relations representing contradictory interests are permissible. Currently, there is a sitting judge whose uncle and his children appear before him on a regular basis. Not once have I heard the objection taken. In the banking sector, the lawyers for the bank, act for both the mortgagee and the mortgagor in a mortgage transaction and if there is default, end up suing the defaulter, his former client. Again no objection is been raised
All the aforesaid transactions contain the attributes for the potential of conflicts of interest, yet, they continue to pervade without objections. In Mrs Singh’s case, she is merely one (1) of three (3) Audit Directors. She is not the Auditor General. She is not answerable to the Minister of Finance or any member of the executive but to the Auditor General who is in turn answerable to the Public Accounts Committee. The Auditor General has stated publicly that the audit of the Ministry of Finance and the various agencies and organs which fall under it is not part of the functions of Mrs Singh. When these realities are taken into account, and in the absence of any evidence whatsoever of any actual impropriety, the conclusion is imminent that the attack on Mrs Singh’s confirmation has more politics and vitriol than merits. The hypocrisy is nakedly revealed by the fact that the very Auditor General, audits the accounts of the same parliament to which he is answerable. Yet, not a single utterance is made of this apparent conflict.
The squabble is much ado about nothing.
Yours faithfully,
Mohabir Anil Nandlall
Attorney General and
Minister of Legal Affairs
