…Finance Secretary warns Auditor General against political influence

FINANCE Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Michael Joseph, has cautioned Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, to beware of “bias, subjectivity and political influence” following his comments in the media on alleged breaches of the Procurement Act.

On May 21, 2019, the online news site, Guyana Standard, published Sharma’s shared opinion leading to the headline ‘Breaches of Procurement Act more frequent under APNU+AFC Govt. – Auditor General’.

In the article, the Auditor General was quoted as saying: “I believe it is more frequent now. There are a lot of sole-sourced contracts and every other day you have some issue with breaches of contractual or tender board procedures. Even the recommendations for corrective action, most of them are not being implemented.”

In response on Tuesday, the Finance Secretary stated, in a release, that since Sharma had not disassociated himself from the article, he is led to conclude that the comment was indeed made by him (Sharma).

“I hasten to add that this statement is most astonishing. The goodly Auditor General provides no evidence for his contention nor offers any comparative data to support his claim. What period is he comparing? Four years of the APNU+AFC government with 23 years of the former administration?

“Let me offer this fact for consideration: for the period January to May 2015, 13 contracts were single sourced to New GPC [Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation] to the value of $4.45 billion; comparatively, under this government in 2015, single sourced procurement for all agencies was $22.24 billion. In light of just this one example, can any right-thinking citizen accept the Auditor General’s position?” the Finance Secretary questioned.

He also provided figures stating that the coalition Government has since spent close to $150M on 45 forensic audits which unearthed gross financial improprieties involving the Guyana World Cup Inc.; Carifesta; National Industrial and Commercial Investment Ltd. (NICIL)/Privatization Unit; Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC)-Drug Procurement Operation; Petro Caribe; Atlantic Hotel Inc. (Marriot) and others.

Joseph concluded: “…all of which occurred under the very watchful eye of this same Auditor General, yet he has made no comment on these improprieties by the former Government? It therefore appears that the AG is cherry-picking projects, programmes, entities and governments to whom he extends scrutiny.”

The Finance Secretary then tersely reminded Sharma of his obligation as Auditor General to adhere to the code of ethics and auditing standards governing his profession.

“I wish to remind the Auditor General that the Audit Office of Guyana is the Supreme Audit Institution of Guyana, it is clothed in Article 204 of the Constitution and is designed as an independent and professional body in the government accounting chain and therefore, he is best advised to observe the spirit and letter of the code of ethics and auditing standards of the International Organization of the Supreme Audit Institutions less he be seen to be guilty of bias, subjectivity and political influence,” he advised.