City Hall has “verbal” contract for multimillion-dollar works – Town Clerk

Throughout the past weeks, several contracting and electrical firms have stood before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI), claiming that they were ordered by City Hall to conduct works around the city of Georgetown without being issued any contracts.

This was on Friday confirmed by Town Clerk Royston King, as he reappeared to answer questions about the financial state of affairs at the Mayor and City Council (M&CC).
General Manager of XL Engineering, Aysha Harrop previously testified that no contacts were produced since King would take contractors to the site and stipulate that it was “emergency works”. The total cost of these works amounted to some $150 million and date back to 2015.
When probed, King told the Commission that there was a “verbal agreement” between himself; the contractor; the acting City Treasurer, John Douglas; and former member of the Finance Committee, Junior Garrett. The contractors agreed to proceed with the works and would be paid depending on the availability of financial resources. He could not recall if any payments were made but was certain that an amount is still outstanding.
Meanwhile in another scenario, the same contracting firm was hired to carry out works under the umbrella of the Communities Ministry but was spearheaded by City Hall. A sum of $15 million was disbursed to the City Treasury Department to make payments for the cleaning project but only $9 million was handed over to XL Engineering. For this project, the then City Treasurer, Ron Mc Almont is under scrutiny since he was responsible for the payment.
Legal Officer, Sherwin Benjamin questioned as to how monies are allocated without contracts to which King retorted, “Such a matter would be discussed with the City Treasurer and the City Treasurer would determine based on works assessed by the Engineer’s Department what should be paid.”
To this response, the Chairman, Justice Cecil Kennard commented, “That is a loose way of doing business…and it increases suspicion. [It] creates the impression that something is wrong there.”
Chairman of the Finance Committee, Oscar Clarke made it clear during his statement to the CoI that cash must only be paid if there is a contract or source document.
The company maintained that a letter was sent to the firm by King which stated how much money was owed. Despite several efforts to contact the Town Clerk to retrieve this substantial sum, officials of the Council would make excuses about the lack of finances.

Absent records
The Audit Office of Guyana presented to the Commission that there are no financial records from City Hall for the years 2006 to 2011 while $70 million was unaccounted for in the city restoration funds. Adding to that, payments were made in excess of $150 million but there were no vouchers to ascertain such. Audit Manager Dhanraj Persaud had stated that the Town Council has a history of failing to produce records for their expenditures.
As this topic arose during Friday’s hearing, King threw the blame on the City Treasurer, stating that he is responsible for sourcing financial records. He further stated that his function is only to relate to the City Treasurer’s Department when those requests are made by the Audit Office.
In attempts to produce a report of the organisation’s spending, Persaud related that the documents were not prepared in accordance with the requirements that are accepted by the Audit Office.
For this, King was notified via a letter on June 30, and was required to respond within 30 days in following the Audit Act of 2004. Subsequently, King responded by asking for a 30-day extension but to date, there has been no response and the report remains incomplete.
“The Town clerk would be ultimately responsible for the presentation of the record. These monies would’ve been given by Central Government and so findings of this report would be present in the Auditor General’s report that is presented in Parliament,” the Audit Manager indicated before the Commission.
“Presently, the officers have been cooperating with the Audit Office. I know they have had communication and I know that they are preparing documents in a way that will allow the auditor to make an opinion,” King defended.
The Municipal and District Act (Chapter 28:01) states that failure to supply accounts for the purpose of auditing is considered an offence. (Rupadai Seenaraine)