The Auditor-General, in a special report on the former APNU+AFC government’s COVID-19 voucher programme, found that 9,000 eligible applicants were denied the grant.
The performance audit report on the COVID-19 assistance programme was tabled in Parliament this morning and according to the findings, officials have no explanation for why 9,000 out of 11,000 eligible applicants did not receive the cash grant ranging between $25,000 and $32,000.
Additionally, the AG said that though they were eligible, the programme excluded persons in the hinterland regions and they were instead promised hampers. The AG further found that vouchers totalling $56 million were not checked before payments were made to suppliers pointing out that the possibility of overpayment was high.
The Auditor General’s Office also reported that some 3000 unused vouchers, valued at approximately $90 million, were left unsecured on a desk. The report opined that the vouchers were easily accessible and with very little verification mechanisms, could have been used to obtain items.
“(The) Information system was not fully protected. Lack of standard controls put the information system at risk. Therefore, unauthorized persons could have changed or deleted information. In addition, there were no yearly security checks and business continuity and disaster recovery plans prepared,” the report stated.
The Audit Office made 13 recommendations to management for improvements and says through the full implementation of the recommendations, future programmes will be better managed.
Back in May 2020, during the 5-month long contentious general election, the APNU+AFC administration announced that it would provide COVID-19 assistance for vulnerable persons. The then government had indicated that it received 12,000 applications for the programme and the AG’s report showed that 11,000 of those applicants were deemed eligible with only 2,000 actually benefitting.
At the time of the announcement of the programme, Stabroek News had raised questions about the origin of funding for the initiative. Neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Ministry of Social Protection (MoSP) which were the lead agencies in the assistance programme could provide an answer as to where the finances were coming from.
“The funding was provided through the Ministry of Finance…The assistance was funded by central government to the Ministry of Finance’s budget, and the provision of hampers, the supplies for the hampers is from the Civil Defence Commission’s (CDC) budget,” Director of Operations of the COVID-19 Task Force Secretariat, Mark Archer had said in a subsequent response.
