By Steven Vickerie
The Sustainable Livelihoods Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) Programme Audit Report of 2019 has been completed. While it has not been released publicly, Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton, in an exclusive interview with Guyana Standard, revealed there was in fact gross mismanagement of funds under the previous administration.
Minister Hamilton told this news outlet that the unreleased report has revealed a plethora of financial mismanagement and irregularities, especially since many of the programmes funded either never existed, or monies were found to be allegedly converted to personal use.
What was more alarming in the report according to Minister Hamilton, was the addresses of where some of these programmes were listed. “Two of the programmes that were executed under the SLED programme, their address is listed at Congress Place… you can deduce from that what you want. So this is just one of many irregularities the report highlighted,” Hamilton said. He also noted that the two projects carry a $12M price tag.
While he did not name the specific programmes that had addresses at Congress Place he noted that there is no evidence as to how these programmes were executed or what they were intended for. He added that the mismanagement of public funds is a serious offence that can attract heavy penalties.
Following the discovery of what appeared to be instances of ‘fraud’ and ‘criminality’ in the spending of millions by entities in Region 10, under the SLED programme, Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton had launched a countywide inspection of all 2019 SLED projects across the country.
According to the Auditor-General’s 2019 report, sums totalling $249.997 million were expended for the project by the end of that reporting year. Unfortunately, the report said, “It was difficult to ascertain the reasons for granting approval to the respective beneficiaries.”
The report noted that a special audit report would be issued for the programme. The Auditor-General’s investigation aside, Minister Hamilton had begun his own analysis, and is now armed with his own statistics as to how the money was disbursed.
