There was poor oversight of trade receivables by the Government Information Agency (GINA) over the last five years and the balance outstanding from a slew of government ministries and agencies at May 31st, 2015 was $134M, according to a forensic audit conducted by chartered accountant Harry Parmesar.
A forensic audit of GINA was among a number ordered by the APNU+AFC administration after it took office last May. The audit was carried out between July 14th, 2015 and October 30, 2015.
Parmesar in his report released by the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday said there is a poor management structure in place at GINA and weak oversight of trade receivables with a balance of $134,356,820 outstanding as at 31 May 2015. The report said that the operations were being managed at the time by Neaz Subhan. He has since resigned.
“We were unable to determine the management structure and reporting requirements of GINA. We understand that GINA was reporting to the Office of the President. No management reports was available for the period under review”, Parmesar’s report said.
He said that GINA had large balances outstanding over the period as follows:
31 December 2012 105,538,406
31 December 2013 121,287,932
31 December 2014 137,427,514
31 May 2015 134,356,820
The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport was the biggest debtor at $17.6m up to May 31, 2015. This was the same balance outstanding at the end of 2014. At the end of 2011, its balance outstanding was $9.5m.
The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) also had a huge debt to GINA of $8.5m at May 31, 2015.
Others with debts at May 31, 2015 included the Ministry of Agriculture at $7.6m; the Ministry of Tourism at $7.6m; the Ministry of Home Affairs at $7m; the Ministry of Agriculture at $6.4m; the Guyana Sugar Corporation at $6.3m; the Ministry of Education at $6.2m; the Ministry of Health at $5.8m; the Guyana Defence Force at $4.9m; the then Office of the President at $4.9m; the Ministry of Labour and Human Services at $4.1m and the Ministry of Local Government at $3.7m.
Parmesar said that GINA sent letters to the above organisations and others in June 2015 and added that “There is no evidence to confirm efforts were being made to collect these balances prior to June 2015”.
The auditor stated that because of the poor collection, GINA was unable to pay suppliers on a timely basis including the Guyana National Newspapers Limited which was owed $74m at May 31, 2015.
Among his recommendations, Parmesar said GINA should establish a clearly defined management structure with both financial and non financial reporting requirements and should establish a debt collection committee with specific responsibility to gather all outstanding debts within six months.
The audit also found that during October 2014 to May 2015, GINA paid $20m to Rajiv Sanchara for the printing and distribution of “The Guyanese” newspaper in New York. No revenue was received by GINA for the sale of these papers. Parmesar recommended that efforts be made to recover revenue from the sale of the newspaper.
Further, the auditor said that GINA paid $8.3m for television and radio programmes in New York but no revenue was received for this.
In addition, during the period of October 2014 to May 2015, GINA spent $16.3m on repairs to its building but without following tender procedures.
The audit also found that three media monitors had been employed by GINA during 2014 and paid a total of $2,395,000 for the year. However while contracted to GINA, the employees were not located there but worked at the Office of the President and reported to Kwame McCoy.
On a monthly basis the monitors were required to submit an invoice to GINA for payment and uplift payment from there.
Parmesar recommended that action be taken by GINA to recover the amount paid to the monitors.
