The Region Six (East Berbice/Corentyne) administration on Monday faced scrutiny by members of the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over the revelation that cheques were being written based solely on the awarding of contracts and not for services already delivered.
This raised questions of whether cheques were being cut with the sole intent of showing money was being spent by the region.
Enquiries came after PAC member Juan Edghill asked for an update on whether the 227 cheques valued $70.248M found on hand at the Sub Treasury’s safe and the 13 cheques worth $2.107M found at the Regional Accounting Unit had been paid over to the respective payees.
Kim Williams-Stephen, Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region 6, related that all the cheques with the exception of 11 totaling $1.27M had been paid over. Those cheques, she said, were submitted to the Auditor General’s (AG) department to be updated and returned to the Consolidated Fund.
According to the AG’s report, Section 43 of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (2003) states that “at the end of each fiscal year, any unexpected balance of public moneys issued out of the Consolidated Fund shall be returned and surrendered to the Consolidated Fund.”
Enquiries by Edghill about whether cheques were cut for services not yet provided, were directed to the Deputy Regional Executive Officer (DREO) Bhadase Poonai, who explained that one of the cheques were cut for capital items that were not yet provided by Caribbean Medical Suppliers, and the other was for traveling funds within the region.
There being some amount of confusion over what was the basis on which the cheque to Caribbean Medical Suppliers was cut, whether it was based on an invoice or a quotation, the members of the administration were given leave to verify the facts before returning to the chambers.
Upon his return, the DREO confirmed to the PAC that the cheque had been cut on the basis of the award of the contract by the Tender Board.
“You can’t cut a cheque based on tender board awards. So what if tender board awards a contract for $10 million and the man give you $2 million of work, wah you gon do? Cut the cheque for $10 million?” Irfaan Ali, Chairman of the PAC, questioned.
“So you were just trying to take money out of the system to show expenditure and not to return the money. Does this continue in the region?” Ali asked further, before receiving a reply in the negative from Williams-Stephen. Ali went on to state that if it is found that cheques were cut and left in the system for 2016, sanctions will be recommended.
