While the PPP is busy crying in the news about spending cuts which will potentially put workers out of jobs and on the bread line. Spending trends we have seen in these fiscal reports point to grandiose theft of state assets. This is not wastage or overspending this is plain as day fraud.

What is even more disconcerting is that many of these Ministries and agencies have been audited by the Auditor General’s office, how did he miss these figures? 1 Million dollars in fuel bills for a minister does not at a minimum attract the interest of the auditor general? could he have been misled because this is such a widespread fraud almost affecting every part of the government?

What about government fiscal controls? are there any? With a finance minister who is a PHD in Finance and apparently touted as a financial wizard of sorts this is the kind of poor spending controls that even the most uneducated in society would question as being unreasonable. The questions to be asked are where are the controls to restrict any government minister from racking up this kind of an expense bill?

One Minister in particular seems to be a repeat offender in fraud, he is in everything from books to barber shop frauds, yet President Ramotar approved all of his spending and his most recent transgressions. Is this government serious? does a government who pays for the fuel of ex-ministers Nokta and Collymore among a litany of others free of charge deserve to be given any money to spend?

What is clear based on many of these financial documents we have seen is that there are serious financial issues pertaining to personal spending by many government functionaries at high levels across the entire government. Guyana Observer News is reviewing this treasure trove of documents and working with several partners to determine whether we should release these documents online. Several members of the Opposition have asked us not to publish these documents until they have had a chance to review them and possibly discuss in parliament.