THE National Sports Commission (NSC) wishes to respond to an article appearing in the Kaieteur News of Wednesday, March 21, 2018 headlined “GPHC, three other state agencies fail to submit financials for several years” in which it lists the National Sports Commission (NSC).

The NSC in a statement said “it wishes to state for the record that the audit for the financial year 2014 of its financial statements ended on the 9th June 2015 and the draft report was sent by the Audit Office and received by the National Sports Commission on the 8th July 2015. That report is still in its draft state and to date the Audit Office has not finalised the 2014 Audited Report.

“The NSC was again audited for the financial year 2015 and that audit ended on the 13th October 2016. That audit report has not been submitted to the NSC nor finalised by the Audit Office of Guyana.

“The NSC was audited for the financial year 2016 ending 11th August 2017 and yet again the Audit findings have not been submitted to the NSC nor finalised by the Audit Office of Guyana.

“The NSC wrote the Audit office on the 12th December 2017 to ascertain the status of the Audited Reports for 2014, 2015, and 2016. To date there has been no reply nor even an acknowledgement of the correspondence sent. A follow-up letter was sent on the 23rd January 2018 and again there has been no response from the Audit Office of Guyana.

“The National Sports Commission has written the Audit Office on the 23rd January 2018 inviting Auditors to audit the financial statements of 2017. There has been no response and calls to the office have been responded to indicating that they cannot facilitate the Commission at this time,” the statement stated.

According to the NSC, it is rather baffling to read in the Kaieteur News the damning allegations levelled by the Audit Office. Also, it is rather unfortunate that such accusations have been levelled against the NSC when the records prove to the contrary.

The NSC said it is requesting an “immediate retraction” of the statements made by the Office of the Auditor General, and wishes to remind the entity of its mandate of providing timely reports of the results to the legislature and ultimately the public.