MP calls for immediate release of Auditor General report

Sep 24, 2024 News

Auditor General, Deodat Sharma (center first row) hands over the 2023 Audit Report to Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir in the presence of MPs and senior Finance and Parliamentary staff

…as 2023 report handed over to House Speaker

Kaieteur News – Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Jermaine Figueira on Monday called for the Auditor General’s Reports to be made public immediately after being handed over to the Speaker of the National Assembly.

Figueira said, “I believe the time has come for it to be made public after it has been presented to the Speaker of the House rather than it being laid, then made public.”  His comments were made during a simple handing over ceremony of the 2023 Audit Report to the Speaker of the House, Manzoor Nadir, in the Parliamentary Chamber.

The PAC Chair urged that this recommendation be considered since the Audit Reports are being buried until Parliament resumes thereby reversing the efforts of the Auditor General (AG), Deodat Sharma and his team in presenting a timely analysis. Additionally, he said that the public should not be handicapped by not being able to access the document until it is laid in Parliament.

The Chairman also noted that the function of the PAC is equally important in ensuring transparency and accountability in the use of public funds. To this end, Figueira used the opportunity to point out that much more can be achieved in a holistic and timely manner if the body meets more often to match the timely delivery of reports by the AG, since the Committee is “way behind”.

He said, “I think the Guyanese people deserve better and therefore we as a collective should endeavor to meet as often as possible to be up to date with where we are as a country. This is 2024.”

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the National Assembly in brief remarks during the handing over ceremony explained that Constitutional Reform may be required for the AG Reports to be made public after being presented to him. “I think we may have to have a Constitutional Amendment for tabling or releasing the report when its handed over,” he said, adding, “As high officials in our land, we have an obligation to execute the laws before us in a most efficient manner and especially in service to our people.”

The three reports handed over to the Speaker of the House to be laid in Parliament

With regard to the PAC meetings, Nadir pointed out that this is not a new issue that stemmed from the 12^th Parliament. He said there has always been a concern of how often the PAC meets and how it can expedite the examination of the AG reports. The Speaker noted that a number of factors affect the process.

According to him, “It’s a function of the instructions flow from the Accountant General to her accounting officers based on their treasury memoranda issued by the Ministry of Finance, based on the rules and regulations of procurement and expenditure and a number of other factors. If all of those go very smoothly then the prosecution of the Auditor General’s report will take less time, fewer meetings but we don’t live in Paradise. We are all humans with challenges and more particularly, those challenges come because we have a dynamic situation with people being at the center of those processes…”

Handing over

In handing over the 2023 AG Report, Sharma pointed out that the Audit Office has once again achieved its statutory deadline of issuing the report before September 30, following the close of the fiscal year.  This is the fourth time the Audit Office has issued a report before the deadline; the last three reports for 2020, 2021 and 2022 were all issued before September 30. The report will be made public after being laid in the National Assembly by the Speaker. Parliament is expected to resume on October 10.

In addition to the 2023 Audit Report, Sharma also handed over two performance audits on the ‘Design and Implementation of the Women’s Innovation and Investment Network (WIIN) Programme’ and ‘On the Management of the Maternal Health Care Services at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation’.

Presently, the Audit Office is conducting special audits into the supply of crusher run and issuing of Old Age Pension and Public Assistance Booklets. On another note, the AG shared that for this period, the Audit Office employed three additional engineers to the Works and Structures Department, increasing the total complement of Engineers to five. Consequently, the division was able to increase the total number of projects inspected for the year from 466 in 2022 to 741 for 2023.

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