Last Monday, Kiskadee Watch published an article on the above subject. There are few persons still around who could testify about the truth of the contents of the article, if they so wish. These include the Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh who was appointed Deputy Auditor General in 1993; the present Auditor General Mr. Deodat Sharma who was a middle-level officer in 1987 when I joined the Audit Office; the present Accountant General Ms. Jennifer Chapman; former Minister of Finance Mr. Winston Jordan who was Budget Director; and former Junior Minister of Finance Mr. Jaipaul Sharma who was a staff member of the Audit Office.
Today’s article continues from where I left off.
Assistance to the Public Accounts Committee
At the time of my appointment as Auditor General, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had not reported on its examination of the audited public accounts since 1973. Under the chairpersonship of the late Reepu Daman Persaud, I offered to assist the Committee in the drafting of its reports which offer was readily accepted. I was able to use the verbatim records of the PAC meetings to ascertain the discussions that took place as well as the findings and recommendations of the Committee. Within a matter of months, I completed the draft reports for the years 1974-1976, 1977-1979 and 1980-1981 which were laid in the National Assembly without amendment.
Attempts to audit Government’s privatization programme
Around the same time, the then Administration had embarked on the privatization of certain State agencies. According to media reports, the programme was conducted too hastily and too secretly, and State assets were disposed of at give-away prices. The Catholic Standard editorial of 1 September 1991 under the caption “WHY DEALS IN SECRET”, had the following to say on the matter:
[The Guyanese people] fear the ruling party, desperate to earn American dollars to bail itself out of a huge economic rut, may be selling out state property at give-away prices and on extremely favourable terms to the buyers…
We need a new attitude of openness and accountability, on the part of the Government, such as the present Auditor General has shown in his department, in order to allay fears, now widespread, that the country is being sold down the drain.
Accordingly, there were calls for the Auditor General to audit the Government’s privatization programme. When I announced my intention to do so and began to request a variety of information, senior government functionaries were very unhappy and refused to cooperate. Apparently, they had complained to the Minister of Finance since they believed that I did not have the authority to audit the programme and that I was acting beyond my mandate. The Minister, in turn, must have discussed the matter with the President who summoned me to a meeting with him. At that meeting, I stated, among others, how frustrated I was that he had appointed me Auditor General and draft financial statements constituting the public accounts were not presented to me for audit. His response was that we were all in the same boat and that he has had his fair share of frustration. He then said that the Minister would write to me in relation to my attempts to audit the privatization programme.
The Minister did write to me asserting that I was creating confusion by requesting information on privatization and that in future I must not make any public statement of matters under his portfolio without his permission. He also claimed that I did not have the mandate to audit the Government’s divestment programme and that his view was supported by the Attorney General. I responded to the Minister by stating that: (i) the proceeds of privatization are public revenues which have to be paid over to the Consolidated Fund in accordance with Article 216 (now 217) of the Constitution; (ii) the Auditor General is the auditor of the Consolidated Fund; and (iii) by Article 224 (1), in the exercise of his duties, the Auditor General shall be under the direction or control of no person or authority.
In an article appearing in the 23 February 1992 issue of the Stabroek News under the caption “WPA backs Goolsarran’s move on divestment deals”, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) was reported to have stated that it fully supported my move to assess the divestment deals. The WPA added that its efforts to have a Select Committee of the Assembly to oversee the deals were rejected by the ruling PNC and that my move was ‘timely, correct and responsible’.
Financial reporting and audit on non-central government agencies
The 2024 Auditor General’s report indicates that, apart from Central Government activities from which the public accounts are derived, there are 254 other entities for which the Auditor General has audit responsibilities: 40 public enterprises; 63 statutory bodies; 23 trade unions; 32 foreign-funded projects; ten municipalities; 70 Neighbourhood Democratic Councils and 16 constitutional agencies. During my tenure of office, these entities, which at the time numbered 231, were duly audited, and the related reports presented to the relevant authorities to the extent that they submitted financial statements for audit.
Just before the run-up to the 1992 elections, Dr. Jagan, then Opposition Leader, visited my office. We discussed several issues regarding my position as Auditor General. I told him that I was preparing to resign but he advised me against doing so because, according to him, change was coming. And in an article appearing in the 10 September 1991 issue of the Stabroek News under the caption “PPP urges Auditor General to seize records”, the party claimed that government financial records could “disappear” if the ruling PNC loses the upcoming elections. Accordingly, it appealed to the Auditor General and the police to seize and “quarantine” the documents. The party further stated that the Auditor General and the police must ‘make selected pre-empted investigations and commandeer financial records’.
The Stabroek News editorial of 17 March 1992 captioned “Auditing for the people” commented as follows:
Now it seems, and is, a huge blessing – and a minor miracle – that we have an Auditor General who is actually doing his job of general auditing. He is exerting pressure to turn over a new leaf dealing with financial reporting in 1992, to tackle separately the backlog of financial reporting for ten years, and to exercise his powers of audit over divestment deals. And he is not, thank heavens, afraid to publicise his concerns. All he is doing is, quite simply, fundamental to good order in the body politic. Let us watch with the greatest care what happens. If obstacles are not put in his way, if feet are not interminably dragged, then it may be we are in a real era of cleaner, more efficient, less corrupt government. But if…well, let us wait and see.
Relations with the media
I have also been criticized from time to time for speaking to the media. To those who chose to do so, I would say to them that I am not uncomfortable with such criticisms because speaking freely to the media and being open and transparent in my actions define who I am. I saw the media as an important ally and a conduit for reaching out to the public, especially on matters relating to public financial management and accountability. I never wanted to be an Auditor General sitting in office most of the time and then indulging in the annual ritual of submitting my report to the Minister for laying in the Assembly. In my early days, I would make field visits to the various Regions. I would deliberately ask residents with whom I met if they had ever heard of the Audit Office and who was the Auditor General. Not surprisingly very few people answered in the positive!
I am not alone in my belief in what the State Audit’s relationship with the media should be. Here is a sample of what leading authorities in the field of public accountability have to say on the subject, as discussed in my book “IMPROVING PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY: The Guyana Experience 1985-2007.
Friedberg (1991: State Audit’s once-a-year report an ‘annual roar’ is reminiscent of the lion appearing at the beginning of Metro Goldwyn-Mayer movies: he roars to the right, he roars to the left, and in a gesture of defeat, he drops his head and disappears until the next movie.
Normanton (1981): The ultimate purpose of public accountability is to provide information and those who would restrict the flow of information about the activities of bodies that spend public money and execute decisions of government are following an authoritarian line…The publishing of impartial information by state audit, and its open debate by parliaments and the press are not essential to life nor even to the exercise of power. But they help towards that most elusive of blessings, good government, and they are a token of at least one kind of higher civilization.
State Comptroller of Israel: Mass media are a desirable, almost vital, adjunct of State Control effectiveness, sometimes even an ally…and I advocate co-operating with them as much as is possible and is permitted by circumstances. The media exercise tremendous influence, and when they present the State Comptroller’s findings and recommendations to the public, they perform a great service towards improving the functioning of the economy and the civil service.
Geist and Mizrahi (1991): Maximum publicity is not only a right but also a duty whether it is convenient to the powers that be or not, even without any attempt at self-censorship in terms of ‘what is good for the country’… for who is to be the judge of that? Politicians? Officials? The essence of accountability is public reporting of findings or, at least, access to audit findings by anyone interested in them. Any lesser arrangement is less than ideal accountability.
Governments quite understandably do not relish the thought of the results of audit reviews being made public, especially if such reviews are likely to jeopardise their chances of re-election. While in Opposition, they may be the staunch supporters of the State Audit’s attempts to ensure that its findings are publicly reported. However, sitting on the pedestal of the Executive, they may seek to exercise undue influence on the State Audit to restrict its access to the media.
In speaking to the media, I have always tried to avoid disclosing the contents of reports and to ensure appropriate safeguards were in place concerning national security, foreign policy, commercial secrecy, and personal privacy. On reflection, my interactions could have been more structured in the form of regular media briefings, as suggested by former President Desmond Hoyte, rather than responding in an ad hoc way to every media enquiry. However, this is better said than done.
At one of my press conferences held sometime in 1991, the late Lionel Peters from the Mirror Newspaper showed up. I had not issued an invitation to the Mirror newspaper nor to the New Nation because they were, and still are, party publications. I wanted to keep politics out of my work. Mr. Peters reported to Freedom House, headquarters of the PPP, that I did not want him at the press conference whereas, in welcoming him, I merely enquired how he knew of the event. The following day, I received a telephone call from the late President Janet Jagan who berated me for not considering the Mirror newspaper a national one. And in a harsh tone, she told me not to do it again. Throughout the conversation I kept my silence.
The media have their work to do, and one would assume that they would use their professional judgement in reporting on the results of an interview. If they chose to sensationalise or embellish certain parts of an interview, should I be blamed for such a situation? My experience has been that if the media carried ten stories about the Audit Office, in two or three instances they would put the Office in a bad light. That makes it seven or eight out of ten, and therefore I was not too unduly worried. I have lived with this situation for almost 15 years until the time when I demitted office. I can therefore say with some degree of confidence that by considering the media an important stakeholder in a free and democratic society, and striving always to be open, honest, and truthful with them, I believe that I have enjoyed a significant degree of credibility in the eyes of the public.
The late 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by an unprecedented degree of aggression from the media in terms of the newly found press freedom. It was as if the force of a very powerful spring, previously tightly kept under the lid, caused the lid to suddenly burst open! How should the Audit Office have dealt with this emerging aggression, given the stigma attached to it over the years that it was not a watchdog but rather a “toothless poodle”? For example, the Catholic Standard of 11 August 1991 in an article entitled “THE CULTURE OF NON-ACCOUNTABILITY” highlighted a number of areas for which the public needed answers, and concluded that ‘from now on, the Auditor General will be the focus of our enquiry’.
The period 1991 to 1994 saw a genuine and sincere effort by the Audit Office not only to restore public accountability but also to improve its quality. I have in my possession a collection of newspaper articles about the Audit Office covering this period. Though in some cases carrying sensational headlines, these articles tell the true and unadulterated story about the Audit Office’s struggles as seen through the eyes of journalists covering events at that time – the late Father Andrew Morrison and Colin Smith from the Catholic Standard; and the late David de Caires and Anand Persaud from the Stabroek News – to name a few. The collection also includes two commentaries published in the Stabroek News by two highly knowledgeable and respected Guyanese personalities – the late Yesu Persaud in his article of 6 August 1991 titled “Accountability is everybody’s business”; and the late Miles Fitzpatrick who selected me as his choice of person of the year in 1991 in his article of 16 January 1992 captioned “the professional”. The above individuals provided me with the much-needed support, comfort, and encouragement in those difficult and challenging years. To them I remain truly indebted.
Discussion