– Burrowes says not interested in ‘cosmetic report’, but in catalyzing fundamental changes to a decayed and dysfunctional system of management
A DISCOVERY by the Burrowes Commission of a fraudulent transaction by an employee or employees of the Georgetown Municipality has led to the initiating of criminal investigations by the Fraud Squad of the Guyana Police Force.

A resident of the city, who had entered into a contract to purchase a property, paid to an agent of the Council sums amounting to in excess of $3.5 million and $220,000 in two parts, based on a demand notice in order to facilitate issuance of compliance.

She was issued with manual receipts, which is normally given instead of a computerized printout when there are power outages. Payments are subsequently entered into the computerized system.

The transaction fell through and an injunction halted the sale so one of the parties was instructed to reimburse the monies paid by the proposed purchaser to the City Council.

She was required to provide her receipt as the Council’s computerized records were only showing a payment of $220,000, and apparently only the original of the receipt for the larger sum was made, with no copies to reflect in the records.

When she produced her original receipt, within the course of a day someone had entered into the computerized system the full sum of $3.5 million.

This was clearly an instance of a multi-million dollar fraud, which sent the Burrowes Commission digging for additional evidence of more instances of fraudulent transactions.

They found that original receipts were missing from receipt books left easily accessible, with the copy pages left intact.

An unnamed source says that, from all indications, entire books could have gone missing, with the originals used to issue receipts. For how long a duration, and to what scale these fraudulent activities have been perpetrated, to the detriment of the functionality of the municipality, is open to anyone’s conjecture.

Commissioner Keith Burrowes was very emotional when he stated to the Chronicle that he was not interested in formalities and a report that was “a mere cosmetic exercise”, with documentation that would just be left on a shelf, but is engaged in an exercise that he envisages will catalyze a fundamental approach to real change.

This is the premise on which he insists this report will be founded, and he says that no amount of criticism will make him hurry up the process, because it is not static but is evolving constantly, with many new discoveries being made daily, as in the current instance of apparent fraudulent conversion of millions of dollars, which seems to be merely the tip of the iceberg.

This has necessitated constant updating and incremental changes to the third volume, so the Commissioner has been unable to finalize the third volume, thus it has as yet remained in draft form.

This is in response to criticisms from certain persons that the report is as yet incomplete. However, the Chronicle was privileged to see finalized and bound copies of two huge volumes, and a draft copy of a third volume, all of which are in the possession of the Minister, even before the formal handing-over.

Commissioner Burrowes says that he makes no apologies for his meticulous investigation, because Guyana is a country where, by and large, there are numerous campaigns, investigations, and reports, and all they result in is documentation, the contents of which most often no-one bothers to pursue.

He is adamant that the current exercise in which he is engaged should bring about the fundamental changes that would reflect in and ensure benefits to the city’s taxpayers.

From all indications, Hercules’ task of cleaning the Augean stables was miniscule in comparison to the formidable undertaking of investigating the various (dys)functional areas of operation of the Georgetown City Council, a multi-billion dollar entity that Commissioner Burrowes says does not have even a simple general ledger to document its accounts.

A very reliable source told the Chronicle that, either wittingly or unwittingly, the accounting system, or lack of, in the Treasury Department of the City Council predisposes to, and can easily facilitate fraudulent activities.

The Commissioner says that for every activity he has to peruse a minimum of 10 sources of information because there is no authentic or reliable method to facilitate validation or clarification of revenue collection or various other accounting matters.

Mr. Burrowes says that the investigation has already motivated entire departments to begin making changes in their operational methodologies in efforts to pre-empt the outcome upon the formal presentation of the report.

The Commissioner is extending an invitation to the public to approach him immediately with complaints/concerns they may have that their payments may have been invalidated, or that they have been defrauded, by employees of the City Council.

He says that just recently it was brought to his notice, through valuation documents that he had seen, that persons were paying commercial rates for residential properties. The difference was being pocketed by someone.

He said it is very obvious that the systems have been manipulated to facilitate fraudulent acts, maybe extending to include the Registry and other entities, but to what extent is yet to be determined.

The Commissioner has responsibility for several important spheres of management in this country, and this Commission of Inquiry he is heading is merely one of several massive (simultaneous) undertakings he is shouldering.

Being the meticulous person that he is, he is compromising on none, and is adamant that eventual changes in the City Council must reflect in efficient and effective service to the nation.