While evidence now points to a possible release or transfer of a US$18M signing bonus that Government received from ExxonMobil and a court matter seeking to have them transfer these monies into the Consolidated Fund, the Administration is now claiming that there nothing is sinister about this move.
While Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman did not confirm nor deny allegations that the signing bonus might have been transferred from a private account at the Central Bank, or spent, the Minister did reiterate that the monies were put aside to deal with a specific matter.
“The Minister of Finance (Winston Jordan) has been speaking to Cabinet about this over a year and how it is going to be disbursed. Once we (Guyana) qualified for our appearance at the World Court which was 30th of January I believe, then that triggered some release of the funds. There is nothing untoward or sinister about it,” Trotman, referring to the border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela, said.
Guyanese economist Ramon Gaskin on Monday in a letter sent to the local media called on the Government to explain to the Guyanese people the circumstances, which led to “the bonus being spent unlawfully and without the approval of the National Assembly.”
He said, “The Bank of Guyana has published the list of 128 Government Account Balances at the end of January 2018 in excess of 36 billion Guyana dollars.” Gaskin said that “the US$18M ‘Signing Bonus’ received by Guyana and allegedly placed in the account is not listed”.
“I conclude subject to correction by the Minister of Finance that the monies if indeed placed there have been removed or withdrawn or spent without the authorisation of the Parliament as required by Article 217 of the Constitution of Guyana,” Gaskin said in the letter.
He, therefore, called on “the Minister of Finance to immediately disclose precisely where exactly the money is, how much has been spent from it, and for what purpose, and what is the present balance in the account if, at all, there is any.” Gaskin said that he was prepared to address the media on the matter once his findings were published as he was reliably informed that the monies might have been spent.
Commenting on the issue, Opposition Leader Dr Bharrat Jagdeo during a press conference today (Wednesday) said he is still upset with the manner in which they Government dealt with this matter, since the money was kept secret until it was brought to the public’s attention through the media.
“I think the way they treated the US$18 million knowing that it was illegally kept out of all Government accounts, so it could not be audited, once it is not formally in Government accounts. Then the Auditor General would not be able to audit it. That it was parked in that way, to be stolen. So while parts of it may be used to pay a lawyer etcetera, we would have seen inflated bills and a whole range of other issues…expenditure that would have used up all the money and it would have gone into peoples accounts” Jagdeo posited.
