Former Auditor General Anand Gooolsarran has criticised his successor, the recently confirmed Deodat Sharma, for what he described as watering down the level of scrutiny placed on the Office of the President, one of the agencies with the largest budgets.
Writing in his weekly Accountability Watch column yesterday in the Stabroek News, Goolsarran said that in 2004 and 2005 – between 51 and 57 paragraphs respectively were devoted to the Office of the President.
However, the 2011 report had a total of 12 paragraphs devoted to the Office of the President, a slight improvement from the seven paragraphs seen in the years 2010, 2009 and 2008 and nine in 2007. In 2006 the number of paragraphs devoted to the Office of the President was 14.
“Total expenditure of the Office of the President for 2011 amounted to $5.749 billion. Considering the size of the expenditure, one would expect a significant portion of the Auditor General’s report to be devoted to the Office of the President. However, the report for 2011 contained only twelve paragraphs, compared with 57 paragraphs in the 2004 report, with marked decline from 2006 onwards,” said Goolsarran.
In rebuttal to Goolsarran, Sharma said that the Auditor General is subject to direction from no one. “No one can direct the Auditor how to write his report. If things improve in an area then we would not have to write on it,” he told Stabroek News yesterday.
Sharma said too that there are a number of factors that one must take into consideration before coming to conclusions. He staunchly defended the report and said, “All of my reports are credible hence they are used by the Public Accounts Committee and the press.”
He also levelled his own criticism against his predecessor, saying that in Goolsarran’s day he did not perform the number of physical inspections done today.
Goolsarran in his criticism of Sharma said that in addition, in 2003 there was a comprehensive evaluation of the operations of the Wildlife Division which was transferred to the Office of the President from the Ministry of Agriculture.
“Apart from the reported irregularities involving the export of dolphins and the misappropriation of some $50 million, the 2003 report had recommended that the Wildlife Division be transferred to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in keeping with the requirements of the EPA Act. However, the Auditor General’s reports for 2004 through 2008 made only passing reference to the failure to act on this recommendation and to the absence of separate financial reporting of the Wildlife Division.
For the last three years, that is, 2009 to 2011, even these two comments were dropped from the report. This leaves the reader in doubt as to whether the Wildlife Division had since been integrated with the EPA and whether any audit was undertaken of the Division. The EPA was last audited in 2009,” said Goolsarran in the column.
According to Goolsarran, the Office of the President had three programmes under current expenditure, namely Head Office Administration, Presidential Advisory (Cabinet), and Public Policy & Planning. Total expenditure amounted to $2.287 billion.
“Expenditure on contracted employees, which accounted for $285.246 million or 87 per cent of the total employment costs, has generated considerable public controversy. However, there was no commentary from the Auditor General,” said Goolsarran.
He said that during the last budget debate as well as the discussion on the financial papers presented in 2012, Members of Parliament sought and were provided with information about these employees.
“The concern relates mainly to the number and types of contracted employees, their professional backgrounds, and the level of emoluments they were receiving vis-à-vis general wage levels,” he said.
He said that for 2012, the National Assembly did not approve of expenditure on contracted employees either in the original budget or by way of supplementary estimates. “According to the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, the related expenditure continued to be met from advances from the Contingencies Fund. This represents a circumvention of Parliamentary authority to approve of expenditure for public services. It is also unclear how the Fund will be reimbursed since the National Assembly is unlikely to approve of the expenditure, unless there is a change of heart,”
He said that it would also be interesting to learn how the Auditor General will view this situation, especially as regards the criteria for drawing such moneys from the Contingencies Fund.
Noting that subsidies and contributions to local organizations amounted to $1.060 billion, he said that the Auditor General’s report 2011 did not give a complete breakdown of how this amount was distributed among the various government agencies.
“It did mention, however, that the Presidential Guard and Castellani House are not separate legal entities and the related expenditure should have been budgeted for and reflected under the various line items. The implication is that these two entities are not obliged to follow rules and procedures that are applicable to ministries and departments, especially as regards the recruitment and remuneration of staff members. Since they are not subject to separate reporting and audit, it is not clear whether the Audit Office went into the books of these entities to verify the expenditures incurred,” he said.
He noted too that the report also indicated that several agencies under the Office of the President in receipt of subventions were significantly in arrears in financial reporting and audit. Most notable of these were the Institute for Applied Science and Technology (IAST) and the Government Information Agency (GINA). “Some of them were still to have their audited accounts laid in the National Assembly and therefore they have failed to report publicly on the accountability for funds appropriated to them. The above findings are not new and can be traced back to 2003 and earlier periods,” he said.
