By| Jevone Vickerie | HGP Nightly News|
NEW AMSTERDAM, GUYANA — Nearly two years after $50.831 million earmarked for the state’s Pathway workers was stolen from the Region 6 Regional Democratic Council (RDC) office, the Auditor General has revealed that auditors cannot verify whether an active police investigation even exists due to a total lack of documentation.
According to the Auditor General’s 2024 fiscal report, state auditors were completely blocked from verifying the progress of the high-profile theft probe. The office was not provided with an official police report, case numbers, or any administrative paperwork indicating what steps have been taken to recover the massive sum or prosecute those responsible.
The $50.831 million in cash, which was held on-site for physical disbursement to local workers, mysteriously vanished in September 2023 from a supposedly secured cupboard located deep within the RDC administrative offices. Despite the gravity of a multi-million-dollar breach at a government facility, regional authorities failed to present any empirical evidence to auditors detailing the current status of the criminal investigation or recovery metrics.
The missing heist documentation is just one element of a sweeping pattern of financial mismanagement, accountability failures, and systemic waste flagged in the Auditor General’s latest national review.
Beyond the Region 6 theft, the report exposed rampant overpayments to private contractors totaling more than $1 billion across 86 separate contracts administered by various central government ministries and regional administrations.
Furthermore, serious accounting breaches were flagged at the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), where management failed to produce 120 critical payment vouchers valued at $877.286 million for audit examination. The Auditor General also noted that outstanding cash advances exceeding $216 million tied to critical pump station construction projects remain completely unrecovered from contractors.
Other major fiscal infractions detailed in the report include:
- Pharmaceutical Waste: The Ministry of Health was forced to write off and dispose of more than $1.9 billion worth of expired pharmaceuticals and medical supplies that spoiled before reaching the public.
- Social Services Fraud: A $55.296 million financial fraud was uncovered involving the illicit manipulation and cashing of old-age pension and public assistance coupons.
- Asset Mismanagement: A specialized water ambulance purchased using public funds for Region 5 more than four years ago continues to sit entirely unused, deteriorating without ever being deployed for patient care.
The disappearance of the $50.831 million in Pathway funds and the subsequent erasure of its investigative trail are expected to trigger aggressive questioning when parliamentary oversight bodies, including the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), convene to review the report’s grim findings. Lawmakers are expected to demand immediate transparency regarding why a major theft of public funds has been left without a paper trail.
