Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Ministry unable to account for millions in State assets – PS

The Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Ministry is unable to properly account for all of its assets and resources distributed across the regions, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, as a result of lapses in the procurement, fiscal management and accountability laws and obligatory regulations – a situation that has reached alarming proportions.

Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Ministry Permanent Secretary, Alfred King made the startling disclosure when he was joined by Indigenous People’s Affairs Minister Sidney Allicock and Minster within the Ministry, Valerie Gariddo-Lowe for the opening of a two-day meeting of the Ministry’s Community Development Officers (CDO).

He told the CDOs gathered at Moray House, they also contribute to the mismanagement in the system. Pointing out the situation recently unearthed at the Ministry, through its various mechanism and outlying offices and unit, the Permanent Secretary said it has been failing to accurately account for resources that have been distributed.

According to King, recent queries were undertaken by the Ministry that focuses on compliance with the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act and Guyana Procurement Laws among other standards.

In making the disclosure, King said it was “only two days I was spending over three and half hours trying to not ramble but go through thoroughly, what is the assessment of the Ministry’s performance by the FMA standard, by the Stores Regulation standard, by the Procurement Act standards and what we found is quite alarming in some cases.”

According to the recently appointed Permanent Secretary, “there are queries as it relates to the Ministry not being able to account accurately and efficiently for the distribution of its assets and resources to support the community’s work.”

He lamented this to be a most distressing, since on further investigations it was discovered that there are several gaps existing in the system, in addition to other breakdowns in the governance mechanisms.

“What we found was that there were gaps as it relates to people who should be involved and persons who should be taking action to correct those deficiencies.”

King said the Ministry has since taken cognisance of the existing gaps in the Indigenous Affairs Ministry’s operations. He highlighted too, “lots of parallel operations… things are happening and people are operating in silos when in fact we should be operating at one Ministry.”

The Ministry’s Permanent Secretary used the occasion of the two-day meet to challenge the CDOs in the formulation of strategies on the way forward and to bring to fore and address the sore issues plaguing the Ministry.