City Hall audits to commence this week

The long-awaited audit of City Hall is underway after Town Clerk Royston King wrote to the Auditor General’s Office on February 28, requesting the audit.
The audit will continue with an examination of City Hall’s financial statements, this week.

Auditor General Deodat Sharma recently confirmed that the request has been taken up. In an interview with this publication, Sharma related that the audit being carried out was twofold; one part would be a stock audit, while the other would be a financial audit.
“Right now, we’re at accounts. It’s two parts. We’re trying to look at the stocks, end of year. And we’re asking to audit the financial statements. So, we will start that (this week),” he had said.
Sharma related that auditors have been able to get city officials to cooperate. He also recalled the work of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). He noted, however, that some of the records from a few years back were missing, but reiterated that City Hall officials were cooperating.
“We’re getting (officials) to cooperate. This is an audit that was long outstanding. We started from 2012, so there will be some gaps. So, we have to find out what happened to the records. We’ll be looking at all of that. But they only gave us from 2012 to 2016.”
There have been persistent calls for City Hall to be fully audited. Back in 2015, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) had received two grants under the Communities Ministry’s Capital Programme for the “Georgetown Restoration Programme”, in addition to the “Emergency Solid Waste Management of Haags Bosch Sanitary Landfill”.
Each multimillion-dollar grant was based on Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) between the Communities Ministry’s Permanent Secretary and the capital city’s Town Clerk.
According to the Auditor General’s Report, there were several “discrepancies” in the way the allotted monies to the City Council was spent during the year. According to reports, after examining 212 payment vouchers, a number of discrepancies were found, including hundreds of instances where there was no evidence of the payment vouchers being certified by the accountant or another authorised officer.
Last year, People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Councillor Bishram Kuppen had written to the press. In the letter, he had expressed dissatisfaction that the motions for an audit of the municipality’s affairs were denied.
Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase Green had denied all suggestions that she was stymieing attempts to conduct an audit into City Hall. In fact, she claimed she had been the one calling for an audit.
“Since 2012, I’ve said it that we are open to an audit whenever and by whoever. I want it to be clearly said that I have no objections to any audit. Since 2011 I have been calling for an audit for the City Council. When the PPP was in Government, they did not take heed and now in 2016, you’re hearing all the cries for an audit. I still don’t have any objections,” Chase Green had declared.
In his letter, the PPP Councillor had cited the accusations of corruption and mismanagement levelled against the Council. He had also mentioned the millions of dollars in revenue the city had collected, with important services still unprovided and financial difficulties being cited.
Kuppen had also referred to the $8 million donation from the Chinese Government, intended to assist the clean-up campaign in Georgetown.