Auditor General (AG) Deodat Sharma has opposed a statement made by the Guyana Public Service Union’s (GPSU’s) attorney, claiming that the AG’s office is responsible for its accounts not being audited for the past 12 years.
Sharma, in an invited response to the comment made by attorney Roysdale Forde on Tuesday after an interim injunction against the union was discharged, said he “strongly disagreed” with Forde’s claim, and alluded to the fact that the AG’s office has been waiting sometime for the union to clear their 2004 and 2005 statements.
“The Auditor General, unfortunately, was not able to have all the audits done for all the years for which some question have been put before the court and therefore it is not an issue that the Guyana Public Service Union, as a trade union, has been delinquent in filing its returns or filing financial records to the Auditor General or the registrar of the trade union,” Forde had stated.
GPSU had sent out a press release on Tuesday which included a letter from Sharma stating that his office had been in receipt of draft financial statements for 2006 to 2016, and that the audit of the union’s accounts for 2004 and 2005 were completed and issued on November 4, 2016 but that no response had yet been received regarding those.
When Stabroek News contacted Sharma yesterday to enquire as to when GPSU had submitted the statements, he was not in the position to say at the time.
On Tuesday, GPSU announced its intention to hold its elections today, after the injunction barring them from proceeding with it until they submitted their financial statements was discharged by Justice Nareshwar Harnanan.
The GPSU’s executive body and the members protesting against them, however, seem to be at odds as to the basis of the discharge.
Forde had stated that the injunction was discharged because the judge found that the case had no foundation after evidence was presented to the court to prove that the union had in fact been in compliance with the financial regulations set out in the rule book.
Attorney Nigel Hughes, however, had noted that the statements submitted were only in draft form, and his clients yesterday, during a press conference, stated that what the judge had actually found was that it would be impossible for the Auditor General to produce the statements that are still to be audited in a reasonable timeframe. They said that it was on that basis that the injunction was discharged.
Furthermore, the initial court action filed against the union is slated for May 10 before Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry.
The application against the GPSU executive members, filed approximately two weeks ago before Justice Sewnarine-Beharry, accused the members of failing to properly manage the union in accordance with its rules and called for the council to be suspended until they could produce the Treasurer’s reports and/or the Auditor General’s reports for 2004 to 2017 and table them at this April’s Biennial Delegates’ Conference.
The GPSU’s elections for its new executive council is scheduled for today, during which some 3,000 plus members are eligible to vote.
On March 30, a circular of notification was published in the Stabroek News, with the list of nominees for the union’s executive council.
The nominees for President were Patrick Yarde, Sandrene Abrams, Unata De Freitas and Gregory Gaspar.
