THE Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday flagged discrepancies in relation to the payment of rent for government quarters in Region Seven by persons staying there during the 2019 period.
This came to the forefront when the PAC delved into the Auditor General’s report for Region Seven in 2019.

According to the report, the region, which has some 124 living quarters, 14 were vacant while the remaining 110 were occupied by various persons. Audit checks revealed that only nine persons were paying rent while three were entitled to rent-free accommodation.
However, the report added that no documentation was provided to verify whether the remaining 98 officers were entitled to rent-free accommodation.

Against this backdrop, members of the committee raised questions as to what occurred at that time and whether this issue still occurs.
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira asked the Regional Executive Officer, Kevin Ward, what occurred as no concrete response on this issue was given.
The REO indicated that most of the buildings are teachers’ quarters and are situated in school compounds.

With this, Opposition member of the committee, Ganesh Mahipaul, indicated that this does not take way from the fact that they have to honour the rules that require them to pay rent if they are not entitled to rent-free occupancy.
Against this backdrop, he asked the REO to provide the committee with an update on the 124 quarters in the region and how many are occupied.

While members of the committee asked the REO to provide specific details about the persons who occupied these quarters, how many persons and under which programme they were appointed, Ward indicated that he did not have that information at hand.
The REO was further grilled as to what measures were taken to curb the issue with persons occupying these quarters and not paying the required amounts.
The AG’s report noted that circularised instruction states that for occupation of government quarters, public servants are required to pay rent of 10 per cent and 12 per cent of their salary for unfurnished and furnished accommodation respectively, except where entitlement to rent free government quarters had been previously approved.

Following the checks, the AG had recommended in the report that the regional administration take steps to ensure that only officers entitled to government quarters are accommodated there and all outstanding amounts for rent are collected and deposited into the consolidated fund.
Meanwhile, at that time, REO said that while nothing was done, an assessment is currently ongoing in the region to determine those persons who are entitled to rent-free occupancy.

Further to this, Chairman of the PAC, Jermaine Figueira instructed the REO to return to the committee in two weeks with the relevant information concerning the number of occupants who were not paying rent and the number of occupants who are not from the region that are occupying government quarters.

Along with that, Figueira asked the REO to provide details on the measures that he instituted to remedy the issue, as he affirmed that it cannot continue this way.