–over order to return unspent subventions

By Naomi Marshall

MUNICIPALITIES have been ordered by the Ministry of Communities to return the unexpended balances of their 2016 subvention to the Consolidated Fund, and they are not pleased about it.
The Guyana Association of Municipalities (GAM) is strongly objecting to the directive from the Ministry of Communities.
This directive, which was seen by the Guyana Chronicle, is in essence ordering all municipalities to prepare a cheque and submit it to the Ministry to facilitate the refund of the balance from 2016 to the Consolidated Fund.
GAM President, Mr Carwyn Holland, who is also Mayor of Linden, told the Guyana Chronicle: “We object strongly to the missive sent out.”
Bemused as to the reason behind the Ministry’s decision, Holland said this is the first time, as far as he knows, that municipalities are being ordered to return unspent subventions.
“There are several municipalities that have legitimate reasons why their money wasn’t spent,” Holland said.
“I get complaints from several municipalities. Corriverton would have sent in their official Letter of Complaint to me, and the Linden Municipality would have also raised their complaints through their statutory meeting last Wednesday,” he added.
He went on to say, “In the case of Corriverton, request was made for duty-free machinery to help the municipality. That request was not given or granted, and that money wasn’t spent.
“In the case of Linden, our finances from earlier in the year, we are hearing don’t spend. Our target was to (1), get two compacter trucks for the town of Linden…”

SOME DIFFICULTIES
According to Holland, Linden experienced some amount of difficulties in 2016, whereby they had differences with an administrative staff, which resulted in several documents being misplaced.
Noting that the Ministry of Communities is aware of this, Holland said:
“The ministry would have sent auditors; they are aware of documents that could have not been found and all of these things. They are aware of the challenges that faced Linden.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a waste of time to send back these monies to the Consolidated Fund when, as early as February, some municipalities were told not to spend, while there are some that were allowed to spend their money.
“I know into the second half of the year, there are some who are spending still.”
He told the Guyana Chronicle that the Ministry of Communities should have been understanding of the position the municipalities are in, as they are not as empowered as the Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs) with certain departments or even their own funding.
“Linden municipality for one… we just hired a work supervisor, but we don’t have a proper works department,” he said, adding:
“No one in there can say they are handling projects and doing certain scope of works and all of these things.
“We’ve now been empowered to do things like this; we are not like the Region who have a full engineering department.
“We would have reached out to the Ministry of Communities for help with an engineer to assist us… Now I’m wondering where all these request went in those times of need and then to come now and to say, we have to take back the monies, it wasn’t spent etc…”

TWO COMPACTOR TRUCKS
According to Holland, the Linden Mayor and Town Council (LM&TC) was about to buy two compactor trucks from China, which would have helped with the garbage disposal problem in the town, but was advised by the administration that the Ministry of Communities was going to purchase the trucks for them.
Now, they have no idea whether or not those trucks will be bought. In 2016, he said, of the $16M allocated to the LM&TC, $12M was budgeted for the purchase of the two compactor trucks.
GAM has since the issue of the directive raised their objection with the ministry’s permanent secretary, and is now doing so with the Ministry of Communities as well as the Ministry of Finance.
Minister of Communities, Mr Ronald Bulkan, when contacted on Monday, told the Guyana Chronicle that the instruction is in keeping with the country’s financial laws and regulations.
“It is an issue of principle. The Administration has pledged to abide by the regulations,” he said, adding that if monies have not been spent for a particular financial year, they must be returned to the treasury.
“It is not something that I am comfortable with or happy with,” Minister Bulkan said, adding that the ministry has no alternative but to comply.