Consultants must be held accountable for substandard works – Auditor General

…says real-time auditing of public accounts being done

Auditor General Deodat Sharma is calling for penalties to be introduced so that consultants can also be held accountable for the quality of work produced, especially in construction projects executed within the public sector.
Nearly all construction projects in the public sector have consultants onboard to oversee the quality of work and to ensure compliance with the terms of the contract.

Despite this, however, there is still substandard work found in some public projects, especially road construction, something which AG Sharma says could be addressed if the consultants are held equally responsible along with contractors.
“I think in the Consultant Act, there is not a penalty, and that is our problem. So, you need to hold those consultants responsible,” he stated.
AG Sharma was at the time engaging the media after handing over the Auditor General’s Report for the 2024 fiscal year to the Speaker of the National Assembly on Thursday. This is the 21st Auditor General Report that Sharma has compiled.
Though he did not go into details of the report, which will be made public after being tabled in the National Assembly, the Auditor General noted that while there have been some improvements in the handling of public accounts, more still needs to be done to ensure that proper records are being kept of state spending and that the taxpayers’ dollars are spent wisely.
In fact, AG Sharma noted that the number of recommendations in this recent report has been reduced tremendously.
“There have been improvements in terms of logbooks. Almost all ministries have been presenting their logbooks. There have been improvements in terms of fuel management. There have been improvements… [whereby] the contractors do not dispute the Audit Office in terms of our findings. We have been finding, through the engineering department, overpayments. They’re still there, and that’s an area we have to try to improve … Prevention is better than cure.”

Real-time audit
In the same breath, however, the Auditor General added, “…We are actually not doing post-mortem audits anymore. We are actually doing real-time audits in some of these projects. And even though we continue to have the overpayments, the Finance Secretary (Sukrishnalall Pasha) is there to ensure that all of these contractors either repay the money or do the work that they were paid for.”
According to AG Sharma, the Finance Secretary has also been actively working to ensure that all accounting officers within the public sector are not just compliant with the rules and practices in place but are also familiar with the penalties that they could face for any unlawful or negligent acts.
Under the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMA) Act, the penalty clause for public officers is three years’ imprisonment and a fine of $2 million. Similar provisions are also included in the Audit Act, but the Auditor General says his legal team needs to be bolstered so that his office could also play a role in ensuring that negligent public officers are held accountable.
“Under my Act, you could be imprisoned for five years if I found you guilty in these areas. I think that is an area that I am looking for a legal person to work along with me so that when we send these cases to the legal departments, we should be able to surcharge some of these officers who are negligent,” Sharma stated.

Emerging sectors
Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Manzoor Nadir lauded the work done by the Audit Office to ensure transparency and accountability in public spending.
“You are responsible for auditing every single Government department, agency, and anywhere our tax dollar goes. You have the responsibility for preparing the audits for all of those resources. So, this is a monumental task,” he acknowledged.

Speaker Nadir, who served in the 12th Parliament and continues to hold the office until a new speaker is elected for the 13th Parliament, went on to note that Guyana has come a long way in the last four decades when it comes to public accounts and public audits, leading the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Commonwealth regions in this regard.
He further commended the Audit Office for taking the initiative to equip itself to tackle the emerging sectors, including cybercrimes and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
During his presentation, AG Sharma had noted that 21 of his officers had attended seminars that exposed them to artificial intelligence and its applications to audit reports. He also mentioned another 30 audit officers were trained in the areas of cybercrime and cybersecurity.
According to Speaker Nadir, “This is one of the biggest areas of leakages and fraud, more particularly as it relates to people getting into bank accounts electronically.
I suspect right here in Guyana, our financial institutions get hit regularly but do not report it. And cyber security is much more than just stopping someone from penetrating and pilfering resources, but it’s also about tracking where the money goes and how the systems are breached… So, to recognise these emerging challenges and to prepare the staff for them, there has to be great leadership.”