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APNU+AFC hired 119 persons without justification – cost was $19M over budget, PAC hears
By Clestine Juan
UNDER the APNU+AFC government, the Ministry of Social Protection (now Ministry of Human Services and Social Security) hired 119 temporary employees without proper justification, resulting in a $19 million increase in spending.
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On Monday, the spending of the ministry under the leadership of former minister, Amna Ally, came into focus at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting.
Speaking as members of the PAC, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira raised serious concerns over the ministry’s employment costs.
The Auditor General’s 2019 report shows that $1.1 billion was budgeted for ‘Employment Costs’ for 707 per- sons during the period under review.
However, an examination of the ministry’s Appropriation Accounts revealed that $1.082 billion was expended for 826 persons. This represents 119 staff more than the budgeted 707 and $19M under the budgeted expenditure.
As such, it would appear that the employment costs were overbudgeted.
The Head of the Budget Agency indicated that although persons were employed in 2019, those employed in the latter part of the year were not paid until 2020 and the funds for this were provided by the Ministry of Finance.
During the hearing, Minister Edghill grilled the now sitting Permanent Secretary (PS) Shannielle E. Hoosein-Outar over the temporary staffing arrangement.
However, Hoosein-Outar indicated that former PS, Lorraine Baird, would be able to answer key questions about that period.
“I was hoping the former PS would have been here. I reached out to her and she indicated that she was not able to meet with me, nor to be here,” Hoosein-Outar said. No excuse was provided by Baird for her absence at the PAC meeting.
Minister Edghill asked for the record of temporary persons who were hired and their roles and responsibilities. However, this information was not available, and the PS indicated that she would hand it over within two weeks.
Meanwhile, APNU PAC member Ganesh Mahipaul asked Hoosein-Outar if the employment for the temporary staff passed through the Public Service Commission (PSC). However, the PS was
Dr. Doerga says, chastises PNC for its extreme racism
BUSINESSMAN and known supporter of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC), Dr. Turhane Doerga, has condemned wanted man Rickford Burke and others close to the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) for circulating an age-old interview that has no relevance today.
“It must be made clear that the racist Mr. Burke driven by the PNC is using this old interview to desperately hold on to whatever grassroots are still left in his party as they are leaving his party in droves,” Doerga said in a statement, adding: “Social media works and no trickery with old interviews will help their evil campaign.”
He went on to say: “As I stated before: [Afro-Guyanese] lives always mattered in Guyana, 28 years of Burnham and five years of Granger. So, Mr. Burke and all those who are still living in the past should have noticed my comments on many chats.”
Dr. Doerga, who was critical of the PPP/C in the past, said that it has redeemed itself to be an all-inclusive party. He said too that the PPP/C Government is the best when it comes to “kick-starting” the local economy.
“I also comment that this government is a legitimate government who still has time to fix the oil contracts so we must be patient as you can’t repair the damage the APNU+AFC, who I supported, inflicted on us,” he related.
On the contrary, when addressing the actions of the PNC/R, the businessman said: “The PNC is the contrary, as I have never seen so much racism.”
Although the Dr. Irfaan Ali-led government has been on a campaign to build “One Guyana,” the PNC/R has been at the forefront of efforts to ensure that the country’s history of racial division is not completely eradicated. unable to provide an answer.
General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C), Bharrat Jagdeo, had said that the PNC/R’s “racist philosophy” will eventually lead to the party’s downfall.
The General Secretary said that Aubrey Norton has been the Leader of the Opposition for over a year and already the party has changed two Indo-Guyanese general secretaries and a treasurer.
He also criticised Executive Member of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), David Hinds, who disparaged a number of PNC/R Indo-Guyanese members for speaking out against racist and incendiary remarks made by the WPA.
Hinds referred to Indo-Guyanese PNC/R member Geeta Chandan-Edmond as a “slaver catcher” for having condemned remarks made by WPA member, Tacuma Ogunseye, who made racially charged remarks against East Indians at a public meeting in Buxton, East Coast Demerara.
Hinds had also directed comments at PNC/R Parliamentarians Ganesh Mahipaul, and Natasha Singh-Lewis; Regional Chairman Daniel Seeram, and Mayor Ubraj Narine who had issued a joint statement condemning the remarks of another WPA Member, Rhonda Layne.
“That’s their only purpose in the party. Not to promote a multi-ethnic and to respect people of every race and every faith as this party does… they (PNC/R) saw them as outsiders. That philosophy, the racism of the PNC will lead to their demise, and now they are rapidly dying as an organisation.
At the next elections, not just the local government one, we will prove that definitively in the one in 2025,” Jagdeo said.
Minister Teixeira expressed difficulty in comprehending how a ministry could have 119 more staff members than it had budgeted for.
“I just find it difficult to comprehend how a ministry could have 119 members of staff more than what we budgeted for, yet, under budgeted the amount by $19M. This is very weird. It meant that the ministry probably inflated the cost for the budget, but that doesn’t explain why people weren’t paid until 2020. Because if it is so, what’s written in the Auditor General’s report is that 119 more staff were hired than what was budgeted. But they were under the budgeted amount by $19 million, therefore, why weren’t they paid,” Teixeira said.
She further probed if approval was granted by the PSC and its relevant ministry.
“I agree with my colleagues in the PAC that there must be records in the ministry… Even if you don’t have paper records in personnel, which you should have, there would have been payroll records to show what these people were paid and what they were doing.
“It’s not a small amount. It’s not one or two people. It is 119 people [and] that is bizarre. Someone has to explain how people were even paid in 2020 if they weren’t on the payroll in the first place, they weren’t budgeted for,” Minister Teixeira stressed.
Minister Edghill explained that the response that some of these people were paid in 2020 is very “worrying.”
“...it would appear more money than was required for employment costs was budgeted. Because that’s the only way you could pay for the 707 and still have money left back. Besides paying the 707, you employed 119 more and paid them, but you also received additional sums, and you still get $19 million to send back. So, something is not operating correctly accounting-wise, and that is why I’m very concerned the former PS is not here to guide us,” he said. and opposition supporter Rickford Burke.
PAC Chairman Jermaine Figueira adjourned the issue until March 17 and asked that the former PS be present.
“When I reached out to her, she said that she was on vacation, and I asked if we can do a Zoom meeting to discuss the queries, but she said she was unavailable,” Hoosein-Outar explained. Figueira said that the PAC would assist in getting Baird to appear before the commission, whether it be virtually or physically.
COMMUNICATION Consultant and civil society member, Kit Nascimento, has questioned what direction the political opposition is attempting to influence Guyana towards with their continued focus on racial politics that climaxed with recent incendiary remarks made by Executive member of the Working People Alliance (WPA), Tacuma Ogunseye.
In a letter to the editor, Nascimento argued that Ogunseye went more than just “a little too far,” despite Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) Aubrey Norton’s attempt to downplay the severity of racially incendiary remarks.
“We must ask the question how one of the leaders, Tacuma Ogunseye, of a political party, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), which was recently an active and vocal member of the past APNU+AFC government, can mount a public political platform at Buxton on which the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Aubrey Norton, sat, and propose that our security forces turn their guns against a duly elected government to support a mass uprising to overthrow the government, and be allowed to get away with it?” Nascimento asked.
Apart from Ogunseye and Norton, Nascimento also called out the behaviour of Chairperson of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Cathay Hughes, WPA Executive, Dr. David Hinds,
Noting that majority of Guyanese understandably responded in condemnation of Ogunseye’s remarks, Nascimento called out Norton, who is also Leader of the Opposition, for seeking to justify Ogunseye’s statement as a right to free speech.
“Norton knows full well that advocating sedition, does not qualify for protection as free speech… Mr. Norton knows full well that Ogunseye went much, much too far, unforgivably too far,” Nascimento
Similarly, Nascimento highlighted the lack of strong reproach from the AFC camp, which has simply side stepped the issue at best.
“Even though the WPA is today a political party bereft from popular political support, its leadership, prominently including Professor David Hinds, persist in pursuing an utterly obnoxious and dangerous race hate activism,” Nascimento opined.
He accused Dr. Hinds, who currently resides overseas, of hiding behind the comfort of being in a distant land to spew his race hate in Guyana through his online radio programme “Politics 101”, recalling the pointed cases where Dr. Hinds advocated discrimination against Indo-Guyanese.
“Hinds, sitting in Arizona, preaches that Guyanese Africans boycott Indian businesses. But David Hinds doesn’t stop there. He calls the Guyanese Indians who are mem - bers of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) and PNC/R Parliamentarians “traitors” and “slave catchers” for condemning the hate speech of Ogunseye. Hinds then issues threats,” Nascimento noted.
He added: “While David Hinds promotes race hate in Guyana, he dares not do so in the US. He dares not embrace the just cause of African Americans who once were, and, even today, are subject to discrimination from southern white Americans in the state where Hinds teaches. Hinds knows full well that he would lose his job with the university.”
However, it is noted that Dr. Hinds is not a lone overseas based Guyanese promoting racism from the safety of being overseas.
“He is joined by Rickford Burke who heads the so-called ‘Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy’ based in New York where he lives, which published the rubbish on Burkes’ Facebook page,” Nascimento noted.
“Nothing, however outlandish, however gross, however big the lie, is beyond these men to promote division and destruction in our country. These are not stupid men. These are not men sans education, yet these are men who espouse, advocate and aggressively pursue, in the name of politics, the worst, the ugliest, the most despicable form of racial animosity, division and confrontation in a multi-racial country. These are dangerous men,” he said.
