The Ministry of Finance is expected to begin financial audits of at least four agencies today, three of which are the Guyana Geology and Mines Com-mission (GGMC), the Guyana Gold Board (GCB) and the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL)
GINA said that this was disclosed by Minister of Finance Winston Jordan during an interview on Friday. The audit will target these agencies which, under the previous PPP/C administration were allowed to remain as offline accounts, and did not follow the standard procedure of having their revenues placed in the Consolidated Fund.
The Minister noted that there are two Consolidated Funds, an older one that had “mothballed, so to speak when we were bringing in IFMAS (Integrated Financial Management and Accounting Systems) back in 2003” and the current Consolidated Fund. He told GINA that the older fund has an unreconciled balance of about $46B. The two funds together have a balance of $71B but he said that accounting for offline accounts that really belong to government, there is about $60B overall.
In terms of the offline financial records, the Ministry has already started closing accounts with balances that should have gone into the present Consolidated Fund, he disclosed. The Ministry is also assessing other accounts and doing forensic audits for some funds like PetroCaribe, lotto, wildlife and those related to GGMC, GGB and NICIL.
Jordan said that once these audits are completed, the ministry will be better able to ascertain the balances in these offline accounts and will then transfer those to the Consolidated Fund.
