The recent Auditor General’s Report has continued to highlight the same concerns it had been doing for the past five or six years. The common feature is the inability of accounting officers to account for large sums of money.
Contractors are overpaid, pharmaceuticals are paid for and not supplied, contractors are paid in full for incomplete jobs, and unexplained cheques lie in drawers.
The auditors found overpayments totaling more than G$1 billion across 86 contracts administered by ministries and regions.
The audit found that the government did not return 3,241 cheques totaling G$5 billion that should have been returned to the Consolidated Fund. These are still outstanding. Additionally, 879 older cheques worth G$500 million from previous years were not returned to the Consolidated Fund.
Auditors were unable to examine 120 payment vouchers totaling G$877 million because documents were not available. Major entities involved in withholding documents were the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security: G$693million; Region Three: G$128 million; and Region Ten G$56.3 million.
The report states, “It could not be ascertained whether value was received for the sums involved, and whether the funds were used for the purposes intended.”
The Auditor General noted that the Ministry of Health dispatched drugs and medical supplies valued at G$10 billion to regional administrations but “there was no reconciliation to indicate what were the items received for the amounts warranted.”
As of September last year, 824 cheque orders totaling G$5 billion remained outstanding. Outstanding drug deliveries amounted to G$3.6 billion as of September 2025.
Equally alarming is that the Ministry of Health disposed of 268,515 units of expired drugs valued at G$1.1 billion. Waste of taxpayers’ money. Another G$327 million in expired drugs remained awaiting disposal.
The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs did not provide financial statements for G$480 million received in 2024. This followed a similar issue involving G$240 million in 2023.
These amounts result from a mere 20 per cent of the audit.
For whatever reason, the Auditor General never gets to examine the entire accounts of the government. It could be staff shortage or it could be that the time it takes to examine one set of accounts is more than the Auditor General can handle.
But even this limited audit exposes a frightening waste of public funds. Contractors are only paid when the engineer or whoever examines the work approves payment. This aberration simply means that the contractor submits his bill of work and payment is made without inspection.
This is said to be a common feature because the engineer demands his cut of the proceeds before he approves any money. Some people became aware of this practice when they were awarded the small contracts to build roads ahead of the 2025 elections.
Some of these contractors complained that when they paid the engineer they were left with precious little, having to pay the workers.
Others boasted about their affinity to the government and therefore had no problem in sending in their bill of work and being paid without question. If the fairy godfather is a Minister, then that is the person who would get a cut.
Some engineers are often afraid to do the right thing because they fear victimization.
Observers will wonder at the government’s reaction having been made aware of the Auditor General’s report. Sometimes there is action. In some instances, the government threatens the contractor with legal action.
Some of these contractors respond to the threat and pay. Others ignore the threat. Depending on their affinity they are publicly blacklisted but they then move to solicit contracts in other Ministries and succeed.
These accounts are usually examined at the Public Accounts Committee. There have been instances of the Public Accounts Committee recommending police action but that is as far as the matter went. There has never been police action on the recommendation.
The pharmaceutical tenders have long been cash cows. For as long as one can remember Auditor General reports highlighted massive irregularities in the quantity of drugs supplied. Some of the drugs are overpriced. The government always pays.
Kaieteur News one examined some pharmaceutical tenders and found that some drugs were greatly overpriced. It published its findings and was sued. This suit was interesting. The original article was published in Guyana. It was reprinted in the overseas publication.
The lawsuit was filed in the United States. The company eventually withdrew the suit.
In the face of exposure there is always the threat of legal action. Because some media houses don’t have the financial wherewithal to challenge a lawsuit they often shun investigative reporting.
Having said that, one must question the accounting. In this day of computers and with the government implementing what it says are modern accounting systems one must wonder who monitors the accounts.
One must also wonder at the difficulty in producing vouchers and receipts when these should be readily documented.
The political opposition has also accused the government of stalling examinations by the Public Accounts Committee. Initially any three members formed a quorum. The government used its majority to insist that two members of the government must be present for there to be a quorum.
The result is that the government accounts from 2020 have not been examined. The government members simply stay away and stall sittings.
Today, the committee is forced examine accounts six and more years old. Obviously some of the accounting officers would have disappeared. Some would claim faulty knowledge. Nothing would come of these exposures.
Billions of dollars would have disappeared. Some people would be filthy rich while there is no money to pay the lowly workers.
Small wonder that the People’s National Congress Reform contended that all it would take to pay meaningful wages and salaries would be to cut down the government’s financial waste by thirty percent.
