Georgetown : During a recent barrage of impromptu questions in the National Assembly by Volda Lawrence of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee dismissed the need for an audit into the $90M allocated to the Guyana Police Force recently which has caused a significant brouhaha. However, the Auditor General has warned that this is not the case.
This publication spoke with the Auditor General Deodat Sharma who says that he has every intention of probing the allocation which has garnered a significant amount of attention recently and further asserted that the Home Affairs Minister cannot prevent him from conducting an audit in how the funds were disbursed and utilized.
The Auditor General says that he is empowered by the laws of Guyana to conduct such audits and that the Home Affairs Minister cannot prevent this.
Sharma did say that he has taken no umbrage to the statements by the Minister saying he took it to mean that Rohee was opining that the opposition might have been satisfied with his explanations of how the money was utilized.
Nonetheless Sharma said that he and his team are currently conducting audits of the 2011 expenditures and he has already indicated that he has set his sights on the $90M which has been causing so much controversy recently. The Auditor General opined that the probe of $90M should not take too long and assured that the uncovering of any malfeasance will lead to a full scale police investigation aimed at prosecution. Sharma said that he is cognizant of the fact that it would be a situation of asking the police to investigate police.
Sharma said that with the laws on his side he can conduct an in-depth examination of the money saying that he will thoroughly scrutinize the trail.
On Thursday last the Minister provided additional information given the insistence of the opposition on clarity as it relates to the money which was allocated for the purposes of feeding inlyned ranks during the November 2011 election period.
The contentious issue is the claim by some Divisional Commanders, especially Assistant Commissioner David Ramnarine, that they were not provided with monies to properly look after the welfare of their ranks during the period of inlying prior, during, and after the November 28 General and Regional elections.
Two weeks after the allegations were made the Guyana Police Force belatedly refuted the claims and had provided a breakdown of how the money was allocated to each Division and specific departments of the Guyana Police Force.
Police Headquarters received – $9,500,251; “A” Division-$8,526,676; “B” Division-$3,459,851; “C” Division-$2,299,465; “D” Division-$1,199,037; “E&F” Division-$1,696,888; “G” Division-$1,136,623; TSU-$4,176,144 and Special Constabulary-$496,887.
“The remaining sum of $10,516,178 is still in the Force’s accounting system,” the police force has stated.
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