Councillor seeking forensic audit not following correct procedure – City Mayor

Aug 11, 2016 News 1

There has been a renewed call for a forensic audit of the Georgetown Mayor and City Council

Georgetown’s Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green

(M&CC); to this Mayor Patricia Chase-Green has said, that she remains supportive of any move to have an audit done on the City’s accounts. However, she points out that the problem is that the Councillor who is seeking the audit has not followed correct procedure.
This publication reported yesterday that Councillor Bishram Kuppen was dissatisfied with the manner in which the council was addressing the issues of transparency and accountability as it relates to city finances. He made these comments at a People’s Progressive Party press conference on Monday.
He said, “Billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money is being spent without any credible financial reports or audits performed for the money spent, as required by the Municipal and District Councils Act Cap. 28:01 section 177.”
According to Kuppen, he had attempted to move a motion for a forensic audit on three occasions, by submitting a written request to the Mayor and Town Clerk to have the motions included on the agenda for the statutory meeting.
Kuppen said that on each occasion the Town Clerk, Royston King, had informed him that he found fault with the motions, but did not advise what those discrepancies were.
Speaking with Kaieteur News, Mayor Chase-Green said that the document which had been submitted had not been properly worded, therefore the application was unsuccessful.
She said that the Councillor who presented the request has been “peddling the wrong information to the public as to why his request has been denied”. She explained that his request does not possess the features of a legitimate motion.
When asked if the Council has offered Kuppen any advice on what has been lacking in the request, the Mayor said that based on her knowledge, the Councillor has not sought any advice from any other member of the Council on how to correct his application.
Further, she said that Kuppen has access to a host of legal minds within his political party, from which he can obtain the relevant information, instead of seeking out members of the Council.
Earlier this year, Chase-Green had made it clear that the M&CC was ready to be audited by the Auditor General. She had reported that between the years 2011 and 2012, the former council had written the Auditor General on three occasions to conduct an audit, but there was no intervention. According to Chase-Green, two previous audits were done – by Keith Burrowes and Ramon Gaskin – at the expense of the council.