Dear Editor,
I have noticed in the press recently that the Auditor General (ag) of Guyana has repeated a call for the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to close their financial books and start afresh, which he believes would help enable the AG’s Office to properly audit the entity.
I do understand why he is making this call, bearing in mind the financial mess he has found there, and the complete noncompliance with the financial acts of Guyana.
But there are a few things the citizens of Georgetown need to know before moving forward. First, do the Georgetown Municipality wish to have a system that could be easily monitored and audited by the AG’s Office? It is not that they never had proper financial and accounting systems in place before. They had up to when Mr Cyril Ramalho was City Treasurer; in fact, that entity was a model of best practices for municipal financial administration. And that was before they had a super-salaried Internal Auditor and bloated Internal Audit Department.
This financial mess that we see at the Georgetown Municipality did not happen by accident, nor overnight. It is a situation that was deliberately engineered over a long period, all the while overseen by a Finance Committee. How could the City Council have been allowed not to have their accounts audited and qualified since 2004; that is, 17 years ago?
Second, by closing the books and starting afresh, the question has to be asked: What happens to all the chicanery, skullduggery and scams that occurred over the decades at City Hall? Do all the persons who were/are responsible just receive a ‘Get out of jail free’ card?
The Council need a forensic audit, not just a routine audit, to guide them on how to be in compliance with the requisite legislation. It is bad enough that the City Council fail to remit workers’ contributions for NIS, Credit Union and GRA, all statutory and legal requirements; and also fail to pay retirement benefits and gratuity to a number of their workers; but it is unacceptable that they get away with tenders and contracts that never came close to meeting the Guyana National Tender Board procedures; the illegal waiver of interest on property rates; the unlawful rental of wharf facilities, and the illegitimate granting of leases.
As we discuss these matters the Treasurer’s Department is currently rocked by the discovery of more irregularities, information that is being kept from the public.
The Georgetown Municipality have to be made to understand that the money paid to them by ratepayers is not theirs to spend as they please, but rather for road building, day care services, weeding of parapets, cleaning of drains, city policing services, public health inspection of yards, maintenance of cemeteries, rodent and vector elimination in the municipal markets and elsewhere, refuse disposal services, building of bridges; none of which – I repeat: NONE of which – they provide.
Maybe there is need for a Commission of Inquiry in addition to a forensic audit there. The only light at the end of the tunnel there is that they have recently acquired a new and capable Town Clerk. Let us hope that she one day gets the genuine support of the Mayor and Councillors to clean the Augean Stables and turn around that entity.
Sincerely,
Magagula Jackson
