Government has failed to account for over $800 million spent in 2018, according to the Auditor General’s report.
The 2018 report, which was presented to Speaker of the National Assembly Dr Barton Scotland on September 30th last year, was not laid in the Assembly prior to its dissolution last month. However, a copy has been seen by Sunday Stabroek.
In the report, Auditor General Deodat Sharma said that 582 un-presented Payment Vouchers totalling $811.757 million resulted in a limitation in the scope of audits conducted.
Of the 582 vouchers, 509 totalling $741.695 million were in respect of the Ministry of the Presidency, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the Ministry of Social Protection. The remaining 73, valued $70.062 million, were in respect of the administrative regions. These included 40 Payment Vouchers valued $61.151 million for Region Nine which represented approximately 87% of the total value.
The Ministry of the Presidency, which administers the ministries of Social Cohesion and Public Service as well as the Department of Citizenship, had specifically failed to present 348 Payment Vouchers totalling $104.446 million. Of that sum, $71,297,000 or 246 vouchers had not been presented by the Ministry of Social Cohesion.
While the Ministry of the Presidency accounted for the largest number of un-presented vouchers, the largest sum unaccounted for was recorded by the Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs, which at the time of the report was still to present 195 Payment Vouchers with a value of $307.108 million for audit examination in relation to the years 2017 and 2018.
The GDF, meanwhile, did not present for audit examination six Payment Vouchers totalling $11.377 million under current expenditure and Payment Vouchers totalling $507.985 million in capital expenditure.
The AG report said that as a result of these un-presented vouchers, a determination could not be made as to the propriety of the payments or whether value was received for the monies spent.
Each agency has, however, indicated that the Payment Vouchers are at the Ministry of Finance as they are each non-sub accounting ministries.
In response, the AG has recommended that the Head of the Budget Agency in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance take steps to locate and present the outstanding Payment Vouchers for audit examination.
