Former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran says that those in the former PPP/C government who hired now dismissed bloggers and ghost writers should also be sacked.
Writing in his weekly accountability column in Stabroek News yesterday, Goolsarran said that the accounting officers in the various government departments which made payments to the ghost writers and bloggers should also be held accountable for the improper use of public resources.
Last week, Director of Communications in the Ministry of the Presidency, Mark Archer told Stabroek News that just over a dozen persons who were being paid through the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN) to do political propaganda work by the former PPP/C administration had been sacked.
Goolsarran said that it has long been suspected that the engaging of writers and bloggers for character assassinations and personal vilifications of persons who offered even the slightest criticisms of the Government was a State-sponsored act. He said that a casual reading of the Guyana Chronicle and the bloggers’ section of the Stabroek News would suggest so.
“This column vehemently condemns this most despicable, morally depraved and unconscionable, indeed criminal act, and believes that it is not enough to terminate the contracts of these persons. Those responsible for hiring these persons, for authorizing payment and for allowing the State print media to be used to publicise venomous attacks on innocent people, using taxpayers’ funds, should also be held to account and their services also terminated”, Goolsarran declared.
He added that the accounting officers of the Ministry of the Presidency, NCN and GINA should be held personally liable for causing violations of various sections of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act to take place. He cited Section 11 – Improper use of public resources; Section 12 – Certifying improper payments; Section 49 – Liability for loss of public moneys; and Section 76 – Liability for loss of public property. In addition, he said that a forensic audit should be commissioned immediately to determine how long this misuse of public resources has been taking place; the extent of it; and the officials responsible. Appropriate recommendations should also be made to avoid a recurrence, he said. Archer had told Stabroek News that the 13 persons, who were part of what was known as the New Media Unit at the former Office of the President (OP), were receiving $22,000 every fortnight through NCN.
According to Archer, none of the individuals worked out of the then OP and had not turned up since the new administration came into office. Their supervisor, Jason Abdulah, was the only one who was stationed at OP and he explained that their duties entailed writing ghost letters, monitoring Facebook and responding to criticisms of the past administration and also posting photographs as directed by former OP Press and Publicity Officer Kwame McCoy. It was McCoy who wrote the invoice for the individuals to be paid. Abdulah was also fired.
During the first meeting between representatives of the new administration and the top brass at NCN, Archer said the information on the individuals being paid through the network was volunteered. He added that there “was no hiding and if there was any hiding it was in plain sight.”
