A report by a technical assessment team on the management and financial standing of key state agencies will be presented to President Irfaan Ali later this week.
The four-man technical assessment team has already spoken to nearly all of the 19 state agencies and has begun to put together its report.
The team – comprising Christopher Nascimento, Public Communications Consultant; Christopher Ram, Chartered Accountant and attorney–at-law; Nigel Hinds, Certified Public Accountant; and Sasenarine Singh, Financial Consultant – is expected to meet with the last agency tomorrow.
Providing an insight into the rapid assessment, Ram told the Sunday Stabroek that the main objective is to provide Ali’s administration with updated information to guide its decision making.
Hinds told the Sunday Stabroek they were tasked with looking at the agencies’ financial standing and their ability to sustain their operations, human resource needs and critical challenges, among other things.
Ram said that the nature of their assessment was essentially a “prima facie fact-finding” one, rather than an in-depth analysis of state agencies.
“The information will be analyzed and reviewed and probably will form part of a second wave of examinations which will look into the record itself…… It is more for the Ali administration to be able to make decisions. Proper decisions can only be made on reasonably up-to-date information,” Ram said.
He added that the team has received solid co-operation from the agencies and has not encountered any difficulties in gathering the information required.
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Gail Teixeira on Friday dismissed claims by the opposition APNU+AFC that the recent appointment of the special technical team was part of a political witch-hunting exercise. She also disclosed that the members of the team are executing its work pro bono.
Teixeira said that the team’s work is simply to help government assess “how bad or good things are in this country.”
She said the team has been termed “rapid assessment” because it was created with a view to giving the president, in the shortest possible time, an assessment of key state agencies.
The minister pointed to the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) as being one such agency, where she said a lot of state assets had been transferred or purchased from, even in the aftermath of the passage of a no-confidence motion against the former government on December 21, 2018 and the five months during which the nation awaited the declaration of election results.
“So we want a rapid assessment, and so this is not an audit,” Teixeira said, while noting that if it were an audit, a different process would be employed.
According to her, “this is just to present to the government and president, a quick overview of the state of these critical government agencies.”
The team was assembled on August 5th by Ali to “immediately conduct a `Rapid Financial and Management Assessment’ of 19 state agencies”. The agencies are Guyana Power and Light, Guyana Water Incorporated, Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, Central Housing and Planning Authority, Guyana Forestry Commission, Guyana Gold Board, National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited, Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission, the Lotto Fund, Guyana Energy Agency, Guyana Rice Development Board, Guyana Oil Company, Guyana National Shipping Corporation, Guyana Office for Investment and the Guyana Sugar Corporation.
The statement issued by the Department of Public information on Wednesday said that the team will also be conducting a review of the operations, policies and programmes of the Department of Public Information, the National Communications Network Incorporated and the Guyana National Newspapers Limited. The team will also address the functions of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority.
