Dear Editor,
The profligacy, nepotism, and outright corruption that hallmarked the APNU/AFC Government’s 5-year tenure in office is being revealed, almost on a daily basis, by the Auditor General’s office.
The revelations include but are not limited to: The Ministry of Public Security’s purchase of, in 2019, $600 million worth of office furniture and other equipment; but the report indicated that millions are unaccounted for due to no findings of record or documentation of assets being received. Instead, a verification process showed that old and rusty furniture was presented as the newly-bought items, together with other used items unmarked as the Ministry’s property.
$2.17 billion was used to fund the land transfers between the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) and National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), still outstanding.
No supporting documents authenticated that cheques totalling $865.2 million had been paid out without any supporting documents to trace the transactions made by the former Ministry of Public Infrastructure, which also, in December 2019, kept 611 cheques, totalling $2 billion. These cheques should have been refunded to the Consolidated Fund. That same year the Ministry also awarded a $450 million contract to a company for the design, supply, and installation of a 150-kilowatt hydropower plant at the Chiung River at Kato Village, Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni). This project was signed in September 2019 but the project has not yet been fructified.
Emergency works on the sea defences along the East Coast of Demerara, at a cost of $1.7 billion, proved inadequate because flooding did not abate when the PPP/C Government took office. Included was $179.3 million to conduct emergency works to reduce flooding in Regions Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); Four (Demerara-Mahaica), Five (Mahaica-Berbice); and Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), which proved no inhibitor to flooding in those areas.
In 2015, the coalition Government appropriated $19 million from the Contingency Fund, ostensibly to purchase CCTV cameras, which were never delivered.
In addition, on December 28, 2020, Financial Paper Two, a sum of $4.1 billion was passed in Parliament, which was an advance the coalition Government withdrew from the Consolidated Fund, in the last half of 2019.
The above are just a few examples, to which can be added illegal land transfers, the Larry Singh bond, Ocean View hotel, the Demerara bridge feasibility study, and a multitude of other corrupt deals made at the expense of taxpayers, even as the Auditor General’s office continues to investigate the thefts from various Ministries under coalition the Government’s tenure.
One wonders when and if the corrupt coalition cabal will ever be made to account for this outright misappropriation of State funds and resources.
Yours very truly,
Baldeo Mathura
