National Printers spent over $100M on used, non-functional equipment

– Finance Manager sent on leave

On the heels of revelations that under the former Government, the Guyana National Printers Limited (GNPL) spent over $100 million on used printing equipment that is non-functional, the Finance Manager has been sent on leave to facilitate an audit into the company’s finances.

This was revealed in a statement sent out by the GNPL, which noted that the unanimous decision to send Finance Manager Shawn Victorine on leave was taken at an emergency Board meeting on Wednesday.
“The Auditor General has been written to and invited to carry out an audit by Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dr Dexter Phillips. Mr Victorine has not been cooperating with the Board in several requests for information on the company’s finances, thereby stalling the work of the Board,” GNPL also revealed.
“There are serious concerns over the finances of the company including the purchase of used printing equipment acquired for over $100 million, which is non-functional among other financial transactions,” the GNPL said in a statement.
The Chairman and the Board of Directors, therefore, expressed hope that the audit could be undertaken as quickly as possible while Victorine was on leave.
It would not be the first controversy that has surrounded the GNPL. Last year, the company was flagged for ordering books for the Education Ministry to be printed in Trinidad and Tobago, in the process bypassing local printers.
At the time, the GNPL had claimed that local printers did not have the capacity to print the required books and as such, the company was forced to look elsewhere. However, local printers had contended that the GNPL paid above what they would have charged to print the books.
The matter resulted in Auditor General Deodat Sharma launching a probe into the company, the book Distribution Unit and the Education Ministry. Additionally, a special performance audit was carried out on the countrywide distribution of textbooks.
It was only this month that a new GNPL Board, comprising Dr Phillips, Mark Ramotar, Molly Hassan, Edward Layne, Dion Young, Nekeisha Persaud, and Sherel Isaacs, was appointed.
When he had delivered his address to the new Board, Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister, Kwame McCoy had encouraged it to plan and execute its mandate with integrity and transparency.
“We must be accountable and transparent at all times and not just by the mere use of the words of ‘accountability’ and ‘transparency’, but by our actions at every level in terms of how the company’s business is done,” he said.