City Hall could not produce financial documents to account for just over $70 million from the $500M that they were given in 2015- 2016 for the Georgetown Restoration Programme, while damage to financial documents have prevented annual audits into the municipality’s finances for the period 2005 – 2012.

This was disclosed on Monday morning when Audit Manager, Dhanraj Persaud, presented before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the operations of City Hall, being held at Critchlow Labour College and presided over by Former Chancellor of the Judiciary, Cecil Kennard. Special audits conducted for the spending of the $500 million, which was given to the Council by the Ministry of Communities (MoC), was presented as part of the Auditor General’s report to Parliament in 2015 and 2016.

“For 2016 council could not produce documents accounting for $70.489 million out of the $200 million given to them,” Persaud explained, adding that: “In 2015 the Ministry of Communities provided the Council with $300 million and 2016 $200 million, for restoration initiatives in Georgetown. These monies would have been given by Central Government so the findings of this report would be presented in the Auditor General report in Parliament. So the council will be scrutinised by a subcommittee of Parliament.”

It was since earlier this year that City Hall continually could not fully account for the money. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had called for a forensic audit into the spending of the $500 million after Auditor General; Deodat Sharma reported that the management of the municipality failed to provide important financial information. In the 2016 Report of the Auditor General it had been noted that of the $200 million allotted in that year “the Council submitted a report on capital works with expenditure amounting to $173.505M.” The 2015 Report of the Auditor General had also noted several discrepancies for the $300 million allotted in that year.

Meanwhile, as it pertains to City Hall’s yearly financial audit, which is not presented to Parliament, the CoI heard that while the Audit Office (AO) has received some documents for 2013 – 2015, for the entire period of 2005 – 2012 there was no verification for the financial statements. “For 2013 – 2015 we were able to examine documents. In 2012 some records were submitted but it was damaged so we could not examine the records for the year 2012. For 2005 we received no documents, for 2006 – 2011 we were told that they were all damaged,” Persaud said.

“We were still unable to verify significant items in the financial statement so we would have to provide a disclaimer saying we could not verify these figures. We could not verify several figures so to make a pronouncement on whether they were healthy or not. We could not say.”

Moreover, according to Persaud, the format in which the statements are being submitted in is not in keeping with proper financial procedures. As such the AO has not yet conducted audits on City Hall for 2016 and 2017. “Financial statements of the council were not prepared in acceptable standard to the audit office,” Persaud noted.

Persaud explained that the Audit Office is now working with City Hall on the proper format for the documents before they submit the financial statements for 2016 and 2017, and then going through with the conducting of the audit. The financial statements of City Hall for a particular year are supposed to be submitted to the Auditor General’s office by 30 April of the following year. City Hall’s 2016 and 2017 statements are overdue. The CoI heard that it is the Town Clerk that submits the financial statements to the AO after being prepared by the City Treasurer. The current Town Clerk is Royston King, while the City Treasurer is Ron McCalmont.