An audit of the city council’s Solid Waste Department is underway and Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine and a few city councillors are upset at the way it is being conducted.
A motion had been moved for the audit after questions were raised about the staffing of the department.
After questions were raised by the mayor, acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry-Munroe announced at Monday’s statutory council meeting that an internal audit of the department had commenced.
The Town Clerk told the council that the internal auditor has been in correspondence with the Human Resources Department to receive the relevant information. After the auditor, through the Town Clerk, would have told the council that they would have approached the Human Resources Department for the accurate number of staff members, a few councillors voiced concerns.
Councillor Heston Bostwick stated that he initially thought that the audit would be completed before approaching the Human Resources Department for its information. “I thought you audit and what you come up with you try to compare with the Human Resources Department to get some accuracy but to go in to ask the Human Resource Department before you conduct your audit, I’m finding something strange there,” Bostwick said, while questioning the procedure.
Mayor Narine then chimed in, stating that it was not the right procedure. He added that after the audit would have been completed, it is supposed to be presented to the council, which would seek to reconcile any inconsistencies with the Human Resource Department. “That is not the right procedure. We had asked the internal auditor to audit the Solid Waste Department, the staffing and everything and then that come to us and we rectify it with HR. You can’t get the HR to go and do the audit,” Narine said.
Councillor Denroy Tudor, however, shared a different view, while noting that in some cases when audits are being carried out, the information from the organisation or department is acquired first so that the auditors can understand what exactly is going on before comparisons can be done. Councillor Trichia Richards held a similar view, while noting that the auditors must possess some amount of “working information” before the audit can be carried out.
