…2008 AG Report indicates otherwiseThe Guyana Elections Commission in whole page advertisements has claimed to debunk allegations of corruption, eight days after this newspaper carried an article titled, “Massive corruption involving $$M underway at GECOM”.The Commission in its advertisement highlighted the fact that two days after the article was carried, Gocool Boodoo, the Chief Elections Officer wrote to the Auditor General, inviting him to conduct a special audit of GECOM accounts to determine whether there has been any breach in the procurement procedures of the Commission.A senior source at the Commission had told this newspaper that a careful assessment of some of the suppliers may be an eye opener to onlookers,
Adam Oates Jersey, given the manner in which items are procured.The official said that in some cases, the supplier knows from upfront which items will be advertised for persons to bid to supply within a specific timeframe,
Adam Henrique Jersey, and as such would stock up on the material.This is facilitated so that when the item is advertised for tender, there is only one supplier who is in a position to bid and supply within the stipulated timeframe. GECOM then pays significantly more than the items cost on the world market. According to the GECOM source, this manner of procuring is done with the knowledge of officials at all levels and is not questioned,
Cheap Blue Jackets Jerseys, not even by the opposition parties.Meanwhile, the 2008 Auditor General has again highlighted a plethora of discrepancies at the Commission. The report said that in an attempt to determine the reason for the disparity in pricing, it was discovered that a GECOM supplier, from whom purchases totaling some $24.633M were made, could neither be located at the stated business address nor could he be contacted by telephone.This, the Auditor General report said prompted suspicions that the supplier may not have been genuine.Checks undertaken revealed that documents relating to the supplier’s business registration had been falsified. The Commission responded by stating that, “this matter had been adjudicated by the NPTAB (National procurement and Tender Board).”Several requests were made to the Tender Board for access to the relevant information but the file cannot be located.A recommendation was made to the Commission ever since 2007 to investigate and report on the validity of the purchases, and to determine the circumstances surrounding the disparity in pricing and credentials of the supplier.However, to date, a report has not been submitted on the issue. In relation to the outstanding advances on the Commission’s Standing Imprest with an authorised amount of $50M, several discrepancies still continued to occur during 2008.It was pointed out in the report that advances were not cleared immediately on the completion of the related official business.At time of the audit, 13 advances totaling $11.018M were still outstanding for 2008. Eight of the advances totaling $1.312M were for advances taken in 2005 and 2007, whilst one to the value of $.5M remained outstanding since 2006.Following the submission of the draft audit report,
Wholesale MLB Jerseys, 10 advances amounting to $10.392M were cleared for the year 2008, together with three advances totaling $7.477M for previous years. Four of the advances however were in relation to officers who were no longer in the employ of the Commission.There was also the issue where a senior management official had uplifted an advance of $500,000 in 2006 for the sole purpose of offsetting elections expenses and, “It should be noted that to date a proper investigation has not been carried out and the advance remained outstanding.”It was found also that, “Contrary to existing Regulations,
Alexei Kovalev Jersey, there was an entrenched practice where a number of officers were allowed to clear advances in a “piecemeal” manner over protracted periods of time.”The commission however stated that action was taken to recover the 13 outstanding advances totaling $11.018M for the year 2008 that was mentioned in the audit report.In relation to payments made by the Commission, 42 vouchers totaling some $23.269M were not presented for audit scrutiny.Additionally, 34 vouchers valued at $10.368M were still outstanding for the previous financial year.“As a result,
Alex DeBrincat Jersey, the propriety of the related transactions, and whether value was received for the sum expended, could not be determined.”
