AG report 2021 highlights disastrous spending on Durban Park stadium

Nov 28, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The Audit General’s report of 2021 has highlighted the disastrous spending on the Durban Park Stadium.

The report outlined that a special audit was undertaken in accordance with Section 26 of the Audit Act 2004, on the construction of the Durban Park Jubilee Stadium.

Construction commenced in 2015 in preparation for the Co-operative Republic of Guyana’s 50th Independence Anniversary to be celebrated in 2016.

A private company named Homestretch Development Inc. (HDI) was created to implement this Project. As at 31 December 2017, amounts totaling $1.150 billion were expended.

Payment vouchers to support expenditure incurred by the Ministry totaling $70.610M were not produced for audit examination. As such, the completeness, accuracy, and validity of this amount could not be determined.

An interim report was issued on 7th December 2018.

The Ministry of Public Works indicated that the observations are correct. The responsibility for expenditure under the purview of HDI, as well as funds paid through the Lotto Fund was not that of the Ministry. The expenditure of $70.610M was identified as that of HDI.

The Ministry had no responsibility for expenditure relating to Durban Park Project prior to 9 April 2016. The Ministry of Public Infrastructure was given the directive to complete the project after the works were behind schedule.

The Ministry was not responsible for any expenditure prior to that date, which originated from the Lotto Fund and HDI; and as such cannot produce any documentation to substantiate those expenditures.

In addition, an amount of $500M was paid to HDI in 2017 by the Ministry to enable HDI to meet its obligation to its creditors.

However, there was no documentation attached to the payment vouchers to indicate the works done, supervisory checks carried out on the works, as well as certification that the works were satisfactorily completed.

Only the list of HDI creditors and Government’s proposed payment allocation to each creditor was attached to the payment vouchers. In the circumstances, the correctness, accuracy and validity of the payments made could not be determined.

The Audit Office had written the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Infrastructure on 19 July 2018, requesting documentation detailing the works done, supervisory checks of the said works, as well as certification that works were satisfactorily completed.

The Head of Budget Agency explained that the Ministry was not involved in the operations of HDI.

Hence, it did not have any information detailing supervisory checks or their methodology of determining that works were satisfactorily completed.

On 11 March 2019, the Audit Office also made a request to the Ministry for additional documentation for the Project. Some documents have since been submitted. The Head of Budget indicated that the position remains the same; that the Ministry has provided all relevant documentation it has on the project to the Audit Office for scrutiny.