Since the APNU+AFC Government took office, Auditor General (AG), Deodat Sharma said he has found an increase in financial transgressions being committed especially as it relates to flagrant breaches of the Procurement Act.
During an interview with the Guyana Standard, the guardian of the national purse said, “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.”
Sharma also registered his disappointment with the fact that he is yet to receive all the information he needs to finish his probe into the controversial Durban Park Project.
In his 2017 report, the AG noted that $1.150B was expended on the D’Urban Park project but Payment Vouchers to support the expenditure of $107.119M were not produced for examination. As such, Sharma said that the completeness, accuracy, and validity of this amount could not be determined.
In addition, the Auditor General pointed out that the amount of $500M was paid to Homestretch Development Inc. (HDI), the private company that was created to implement the D’Urban Park Project. This was paid over to the company so that it could meet its obligation to its creditors.
However, Sharma found that there was no documentation attached to the Payment Vouchers to indicate the works done or that supervisory checks were carried out on the works. He highlighted too that there was no certification to show that the works were satisfactorily completed. These details, two years later, are yet to be presented to his office for examination.
