Despite numerous calls for action to be taken again those found culpable of wrongdoing at State agencies which was unearthed during forensic audits, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan has hinted that the police may not be called in and said that the Boards of the entities involved need to take charge.
Asked last Friday if the audit reports would be handed over to the police, the minister told the Sunday Stabroek, “not necessarily” since it is not the desire of government to “flood the police with reports which may just need the intervention of the board.” He pointed out that some of the reports have already been handed over to the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU).
The Sunday Stabroek has since learnt that the audit report into the operations of the Guyana Market Corporation (GMC) which covered the period between January 1, 2012 and March 31, 2015 was handed over to SOCU. The auditor, Saykar Boodhoo, had uncovered financial improprieties including fraud in the management of the GMC’s fertilizer program and in the construction of its office building, for which it recommended a police probe.
The report specifically recommended that the Ministry of Agriculture engineer who certified the payment vouchers for the plywood used in the construction of the GMC office building should “be charged criminally and brought before the courts for his participation in conducting fraud against the Government of Guyana.” The report also urged that efforts be made to bring charges against top officials of the construction company which won the bid to construct the building but failed not only to finish it as agreed, but also used substandard material.
Ramjattan told the Sunday Stabroek that the Boards of the entities should be in control of what happens with regards to the recommendations made in the reports. “But we (government) would like to hear from the Board members…it is the Board members who would be taking charge and direct what happens,” he stressed.
There have been many questions as to what will happen with the audit reports as large sums of money has been spent to have the audits done and several have recommended criminal charges. The David Granger administration has not made it clear what would happen with the reports once they have been completed and handed over to the government.
Asked specifically what the administration plans to do with the many audit reports, Ramjattan said those reports have to be taken to the Boards of those agencies.
“The board members would have to go through the reports and consult among themselves and look at the scampishness that went out under the previous government,” the minister said. He underscored that the boards are relatively new and would not have been in place during the period when the audits were done.
“They [the boards] would not have to plug the loop holes that were described in the audits. They would have remedied the situation and work along with the police investigations,” the minister said.
Last December, information provided to the National Assembly by Finance Minister Winston Jordan showed that the Government of Guyana had spent in excess of $133 million on the forensic audits since the APNU+AFC coalition took office in May 2015.
Bryan Hunt, the outgoing Deputy Chief of the American Embassy in Guyana, during a farewell reception on Friday alluded indirectly to the audits. He said that anyone who stole or attempts to steal State resources must be criminally charged and held accountable before a court of law.
President David Granger has said that the audits are guides for corrective action and preventing reoccurrences. “They are guides for corrective action to ensure that there is no reoccurrence and to ensure that in cases where there is culpability, unlawful behavior, that persons could be brought before the court and if they are found guilty of having committed offenses they could be punished,” he said during a recording of “The Public Interest” last month.
He insisted that his administration was not ignoring the reports but some of them “may not be sufficiently grave to bring the House down.”
