MINISTER within the Ministry of Finance, Jaipaul Sharma has handed over the final reports of the forensic audits of the One Laptop per Family, E-Government Project, National Frequency Management Unit, Guyana Gold Board and Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.

Sharma on Wednesday met with Acting Commissioner of Police David Ramnarine at his Office at Eve Leary to hand over the reports. The Finance Ministry said in a statement that the decision to have the documents handed over to the Police Commissioner for investigation was made by Cabinet. Present at the handing over were: David Ramnarine – Acting Commissioner of Police and Mr. Sydney James – Assistant Commissioner of Police and Head of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) as well as UK Advisor to SOCU, Dr. Sam Sittlington.

The audit report had revealed that over 3,000 damaged laptops were donated to the Donald Ramotar Administration for the OLPF Project. In May 2012, the National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CNMIXC) in collaboration with the Government of China donated 28,145 Great Wall Laptops to the Government of Guyana. The total was estimated around $1,633,671,488.

However, more than 3,000 of the laptops had technical problems ranging from battery and keyboard failures, damaged LCD displays and malfunctioning of the motherboard. According to the Forensic Audit Report compiled by Ram and McRae Chartered Accountants, CNMIXC provided a number of spare parts to the OLPF free of cost and even brought in two technicians from China to assist in rectifying the problems. However, due to the quantities of laptops damaged, the level of technical support was totally inadequate.

A physical count at August 5, 2015 observed by Ram & McRae revealed a total of 3,158 damaged Great Wall laptops. On September 15, 2015, another agreement was signed, this time by the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Government and Aerospace Science and Industry Shenzhen Company Limited (China). This new agreement has paved the way for the procurement of 9,609 laptops to be provided by China at a total cost of $1,631,000,000. The unit cost per laptop, according to the contractual agreement, is $169,737.

Though these new laptops are of a high quality and possess higher specifications than the laptops acquired by the Ramotar Administration, Ram and McRae alluded to the fact that “similar quality and specifications are listed on the international markets for prices ranging from $86,310 to $108,974.”

Overall, the forensic audit has revealed that more than 1900 laptops, totaling in excess of $115M are currently unaccounted for, defective laptops have taken the total losses to over $300M. The project, which was the brainchild of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, had intended to equip 90,000 families with laptops but the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) fell short in achieving its objective. Only 58,303 laptops were distributed.

The audit has also revealed that the total distribution cost amounted to $35,291,406 or three per cent of the total cost of the project. The average cost of distribution per laptop was therefore calculated to be $706. On the other hand, total training cost amounted to $70,750,427 or six per cent of the total cost of the project. The average cost of training per laptop was therefore $1,415.