–says 2015 audit report riddled with errors

FINANCE Minister Winston Jordan has chided Auditor General (AG) Deodat Sharma for some aspects of the Auditor General’s Report for 2015, noting that it was aimed at placing the APNU+AFC coalition Administration in a negative light.

Speaking on Monday at a Finance Ministry press conference, Minister Jordan made it clear that many of the things reported on in the AG’s report and publicised in the press were “taken out of context” and were “designed to inflame, rather than educate and inform”.

Jordan said the many inaccuracies found in the AG Report could have been avoided had Sharma consulted with the Finance Ministry, as he had done in the past.

“There was a period, not so long ago, when the Auditor General’s Report, before it was published, used to come right here in the Ministry of Finance. I am not talking tales out of school, you know I worked here almost all my life, where it was edited for content and other things before it was published. Today that doesn’t happen anymore,” he said.

He added: “The Auditor General is now under the PAC, he doesn’t have to ask the Minister of Finance anything; he could write what he feels like writing and then produce his report. The Minister of Finance doesn’t see the AG’s Report before it is published. Indeed, there is no such requirement; not even by way of courtesy,” said the Finance Minister.

His utterance was supported by Accountant General Jawahar Persaud, who was also part of the press conference on Monday. Persaud said he worked for a number of years with the Finance Ministry, and since the start of his tenure, the Auditor General has been consulting with senior officers of the Finance Ministry before publishing his report.

“He would send out an initial audit report as per normal audit, and we are required to respond. And in that regard, myself; the Deputy Finance Secretary, who is the accounting officer of the Ministry; and the Finance Secretary will attend that meeting, and we will have a discourse with the Auditor General (wherein) we would iron out certain misinformation or corrections to his report,” Persaud stated.

This has, however, stopped happening, according to both Minister Jordan and the Accountant General.

NOT TRYING TO INTERFERE
But even as a fiery Minister Jordan lambasted the Auditor General for the inaccuracies in the 2015 report, he made it clear that he was not, in any way, attempting to interfere with his work. He said what he expects is that the Finance Ministry be given a hearing.

“For me, if you want to dabble in those and any other area, to be quite honest, an opportunity to be heard is the least we would ask for,” he said, as he stressed that he was not in a position to tell the Auditor General how to carry out his functions.

“I am not telling the Auditor General how to do his work; he does his work however he wants to. But I would expect from an autonomous, independent institution a level of integrity, professionalism and competence when these things are being produced,” Minister Jordan said.

Noting that he can in no way influence the Auditor General’s Report, Minister Jordan said what he finds strange is the move from “one extreme, where it (AG’s report) comes here and used to be edited before it got printed; to the other extreme, where it doesn’t come here anymore, and gets printed unedited without any opportunity for us to explain anything that may appear to be out of the ordinary.”

The Finance Minister said, too, that the way the 2015 AG Report was written suggested that the APNU-AFC Administration was accountable for all of 2015, when in fact it took office only in May that year.

“We are not asking for praise, all we are asking for is factual reporting,” he stated. “You (The Auditor General) made a statement saying we did not spend $20 billion in capital expenditure, and revenues were short by $781 million. These are budgetary matters. If you are going to comment on them, ask the people who are the specialists…. A budget is just what it says: it is an estimate; your best estimate, given certain objective conditions,” he added.

Asked whether he believes the actions of the Auditor General are politically motivated, the Finance Minister declined to comment, saying: “I won’t go down that road.”

He however said he has no intention to have legislative changes be made to mandate the Auditor General to consult with him before publishing his report.

NO ROLE
“I don’t want to trample on the Auditor’s autonomy,” he declared. Jordan has, meanwhile, made note of Government’s spending from the Contingencies Fund, stressing that the Auditor General has no role questioning such spending.

“The Constitution (makes) the Minister of Finance the sole individual to determine the exigency, emergency…of the matter; for which he can dig his hand into the Contingency Fund (and) soon thereafter bring it to the Parliament for ex-post approval. In this he does not have to consult with the AG. Being a member of Cabinet, he consults with his Cabinet, and it is his Cabinet at the end of the day who’d give (him) the instruction,” the Finance Minister said.

If the Auditor General wants to determine whether the use of money from the Contingencies Fund was an emergency is of no consequence under law. “I don’t have to explain anything to the AG; I have to explain to the Parliament…. So running around hollering about the APNU government can’t account for $600M or $500M…is playing to the gallery,” Minister Jordan said.

The minister said that when Government took office, it was under lots of pressure to prepare a budget in a short time frame. He also noted the pressures it had been subjected to by neighbouring Venezuela, which resulted in Government using money from the Contingencies Fund for GDF exercises.

“We can’t say zero contingencies will happen…. There was one Contingency Fund request from the Government from May to December last year, and it represented 0.36 per cent of our budgeted expenditure for last year. For similar periods in 2011, contingencies fund request represented 4.8 per cent of the budget: 2.77 per cent in 2012; 1.13 per cent in 2013, and 1.2 per cent in 2014,” the minister stated.

Minister Jordan has given assurance of his administration’s commitment to transparency and accountability in the public sector.

Calls to the Auditor General for comment on the minister’s statements went unanswered.