Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) Newell Dennison has said that while he is not sure of the status of the Amerindian Purpose Fund (APF), he can confirm that the Commission has made no deposits for the years 2020 and 2021.
Dennison relayed the information to Stabroek News during a telephone interview on Saturday.
The APF was established by virtue of the Amerindian Act Chapter 29:01 of 2000. Section 30 of the Act states that “the fund shall be expended by the Chief Officer solely for the benefit of the Amerindians of Guyana in such a manner as the Minister may from time to time direct, but no expenditure for which provision has been made in the annual estimates of Guyana shall be borne by the fund.”
Section 31 adds, “The accounts of the Fund shall be kept by the Chief Officer who shall prepare an annual account of the receipts and payments of the fund made up to the 31st December in each year, together with a statement showing the investments and the cash balance of the fund as certified by the Accountant-General, and of any other assets of the fund…”
This Act was later repealed by Section 84 of the Amerindian Act (2006), which had not in itself provided for the operation of the Fund. The original Act, at Section 29, required the preparation of financial statements and an audit by the Auditor-General. These, even though not captured in the current Act, are best practice requirements of any accounting process, but were never satisfied since the establishment of the Fund, the Auditor General’s 2020 report said.
On Saturday, Dennison said that he would have to check the Commission’s record to determine where they were at with payments in relation to the fund but added that the issue of contributions to the fund would be raised at every National Toshaos’ Conference (NTC).
The National Toshaos’ Conference is yet to be held with the life of the National Toshaos’ Council executive body ending in 2020. The government has indicated that there would be no Toshaos’ Conference this year which means that the all-important indigenous people’s advocacy body would be inactive for another year.
“I hope I don’t mix up because I am talking at the top of my head but I know that at almost every NTC in recent times this has come up –the fund. The fund really is supposed to be, from my recollection, from those communities that are actually participating in mining. So that revenue of a certain percentage, and there is a formula to calculate it, goes in from those areas that are actually participating in mining,” Dennison said.
“I can’t remember in what year the GGMC, from my recollection and I wasn’t Commissioner then, but from my recollection, GGMC made a sizeable deposit into that fund and it was in the vicinity of $1 billion. And from my recollection again, that has been considered an advance so indeed yes there hasn’t been any payment in 2020. I don’t recall a payment being made for 2021,” he added.
The $1 billion deposit was made back in 2012 under the PPP/C government according to Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat.
Dennison told Stabroek News that the deposit was considered as an advance payment in the fund but could not say whether any reconciliation was done to determine if that sum was exhausted or is still in surplus.
“So whether or not one in reconciling would want to say that that $1 billion is still considered a significant advance that would have to be determined. I can’t off hand say as an example what the typical revenue base would be that that fund would generate based on the formula used to calculate, so I wouldn’t be able to say in a general sense from that time that $1 billion was paid down whether one would consider that in reconciliation that the $1 billion is enough,” he explained.
The GGMC Commissioner did commit to undertake an examination of the records to determine whether the Commission is in arrears or surplus.
Bharrat also confirmed with Stabroek News that GGMC has not paid any money into the APF since the PPP/C took office in August of 2020.
“I don’t have the exact figure but that fund is managed by the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, Minister Pauline (Sukhai) would be on the one to say how it is managed. GGMC would deposit into the fund but how the money is being spent, the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs would determine that not GGMC. With regards to how much is in the fund I do not know,” the Minister said during a recent interview with this publication.
Too soon
While the Amerindian Purpose Fund continues to be flagged for poor accounting practices, Minister of Amerindian Affairs Sukhai continues to take a laid-back approach in putting mechanisms in place to correct deficiencies. Following the publication of the Auditor General’s 2020 report highlighting the fund’s poor management, Sukhai had told this newspaper that it is the “wrong time” to discuss the issues.
“This is the wrong time to discuss that (report). That report was not under our government and I cannot discuss it at this time. It has been a long time and I have not seen that,” the Minister had said during a brief telephone interview with this publication back in December last year.
Auditor General Deodat Sharma, in his 2020 report, revealed that the Fund’s bank account was last reconciled in November of 2009. It was recommended that the Head of the Budget Agency reconciles the account at the earliest time possible and that the results be submitted for audit. Auditor General Deodat Sharma recommended that better systems be put in place for the management of the fund while noting that the Amerindian Affairs Ministry maintained a cash book that was not balanced nor reflected an opening balance of the fund at the beginning of the fiscal year. Additionally, the ministry failed to reflect a closing balance at the end of the year which is December 31, 2020.
During a recent interview with Stabroek News, Sukhai said “we are not responsible for extractive industries royalties but if you are talking about the Ministry of Natural Resources under which the GGMC commission comes under in which Amerindian villages may lie or be located in a mining district or there are miners who may be working within those areas, they usually pay their royalties to the GGMC when GGMC calculates what is due then they will transfer it.”
When asked whether GGMC has been transferring those funds, the Minister said “well we have just come back in office and we will be looking to ensure that those were done but I can’t report for the period for which we were out of office. When we were in office the GGMC did transfer.”
It has been 19 months and 11 days since the PPP/C took office and Stabroek News has questioned the Minister three times about the fund but got no substantive information about its management, the amount of monies in it and the accounting practices.
The AG said that an examination of receipts and payment vouchers, presented, revealed that $23.88 million was received as revenue with $18.379 million being expended. The bank statements for the fund showed that it had an opening balance of $27.463 million at the beginning of 2020 and closed off the year with $32.928 million.
It added that in the expended sum, $17.653 million was paid over to the Hururu Village Council to offset expenses for the year 2020. Hururu Village is located along the Berbice River where bauxite mining is its major economic activity. According to the ministry, the payments represent royalties paid by Russian bauxite company, RUSAL through the Ministry for the Hururu Village Council. The Ministry further explained that documents to accounts for those funds are available.
The Ministry was still to recover 71 advances totalling $26.572 million that were issued from 2015 to 2017 from the Fund.
Deputy Speaker Lenox Shuman has also raised questions about the management of the fund.
