GOVERNMENT ministries and other budget agencies were fully apprised of the illegalities of using public monies to purchase expensive jewellery and other personal gifts for government officials.
As a matter of fact, in 2018, the Ministry of Finance, having detected previous purchases, issued a budget circular specifically warning that “gifts and merchandise related to occasion-specific or ministry-specific paraphernalia and gifts must be reduced.”
The written notice was not heeded, and the Finance Secretary, Michael B. Joseph, was forced to issue a second circular six months later, since agencies were still proposing to present monetary vouchers and other gifts for staff during the holidays, utilising public funds.
That circular specified that agencies were “not permitted” to make these purchases, as it is contrary to what is outlined in Guyana’s Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA), section 16 which states, “There shall be no expenditure of public monies except in accordance with article 217 of the Constitution.”
The circular, referred to above, which was shared with this newspaper, pointed to the fact that the spending was neither considered nor approved by the National Assembly, and as such “any related payment by any HoBA (Head of Budget Agency) is prohibited.” Several agencies under the then Ministry of Public Infrastructure continued to defy the warnings, and went ahead to purchase exorbitant gifts for the ministers – David Patterson and Annette Ferguson.
Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, recently disclosed that over the last five years, Patterson received personal gifts totaling $2.646 million, from agencies under his remit. The latest purchases were made in May 2020, when the former minister received gifts valued at $704,292.
Ferguson received items valued at $1.4 million from the very agencies; however, these were classified as “donations”. A spreadsheet from the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC) showed that in excess of $6 million in “donations” were given to the Public Infrastructure Ministry between June 2015 and July 2016.
The gift-giving was also extended to former General Manager of the DHBC, Rawlston Adams who approved the purchase of a spanking $897,000 bracelet as a gift for International Men’s Day in 2020. Adams has since resigned and begun repaying for the item. The Guyana Police Force has been called in to investigate the scandal.
Meanwhile, Auditor-General, Deodat Sharma, had previously told the Guyana Chronicle that, as part of the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMA) Act, accounting officers, also known as Permanent Secretaries, could face penalties for spending monies that have not been budgeted for and approved by the National Assembly.
