In his Accountability Watch Column in the Stabroek News (SN) edition of July 29, 2024, former Auditor General (AG), Dr. Anand Goolsarran continues to cleverly cast unjustifiable aspersions towards the undersigned,viz-à-viz, his paradoxically convoluted ramblings. It would be remiss of the undersigned to leave these unaddressed, among other things he said—worthy of deconstruction.
He disclosed that there was an email exchange between the undersigned and himself, to which he described as a “fruitful exchange”. Unfortunately, the readers did not have the benefit of that “fruitful exchange” to which he refers. The undersigned is therefore compelled to divulge the full context of the exchange. First, it is important to note that the only reason there was an email exchange between him, and the undersigned was because SN, as expected, inordinately sanitized one of the undersigned’s previous responses to him, such thatit was ridiculously unrecognizable. Hence, to ensure that he was privy to the original response, it was emailed to him by the undersigned.
The former AGtook great offence to acomment in one of the undersigned’s letters in the media,citingother accountants who publicly registered concerns on whether he possessed the relevant qualification and experience to conduct the forensic audits. So, the former AG in his first email to the undersigned,attached his curriculum vitae, which I never opened and read (btw). But, in a subsequent letter, it was pointed out to him that this author withdrew the statement. For ease of reference I wrotethe following (Guyana Chronicle, July 26, 2024):
“[f]or my part, therefore, I have no difficulty to voluntarily withdraw the said “cited and paraphrased” assertion. Might I add, too, that only those who uphold the highest level of professional integrity and ethical standards would volunteer to withdraw a previous statement that was the subject of correction and/or clarification. As for his part, his reluctance to withdraw his incorrect and misguided assertions concerning me, is duly noted.”
To date, the former AG refuses to withdraw comments and aspersions he made about the undersigned publicly. This leaves much to be desired in so far as his integrity, credibility, and character are concerned. It is not that the undersigned is immune to criticismas he posited. As a matter of fact, it bothers me not, whether or not he chooses to withdraw or not. Rather, the modus operandi of the undersigned is to mainly expose his lack of credibility and shallow integrity.
To this end, he has refused to acknowledge that the undersigned has demonstrated the highest level of ethical conduct by recusing myself whenevera conflict of interest arose at the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) that involves the undersigned. I have done this twice, which the PPC has confirmed officially in a response to questions raised by SN. He has also disregarded the fact that there was no conflict of interest with my former business relations with ExxonMobil Guyana (EMGL) and the PPC, considering that the operations of EMGL are governed by the 2016 Petroleum Agreement, the Petroleum Activities Act, the Local Content Act, and the Environmental Protection Act. Whereas the PPC’s functions and mandate concerns theoversight responsibility, monitoring and compliance, among others, in relation to public procurement, pursuant to the Procurement Act (2003).
Additionally, he refused to accept and acknowledge altogether that he erred in his interpretation of the undersigned’s status as a commissioner, whereby he was of the incorrect view that a commissioner is an employee of the Government. It was explained to him that in accordance with the Constitution of Guyana, constitutional office holders are not employees of the Government, and that there is no employment contract as well.
In the said email exchange, the former AG denied having any affiliation with any political party, namely, the Alliance for Change (AFC), although he admitted to having a long-standing and close relationship with the AFC’s executive member and former leader, Khemraj Ramjattan.He also admitted that his son, Michael Goolsarran was a prominent national candidate for the AFC, contending the general and regional elections in 2006.
In a clever, but failed attempt to extricate himself of his complicit participation as a financial beneficiary, in the purposeful breach of the Procurement Actin relation to the forensic audit contracts, he contends that the award was lawfully done under the restricted tender provision and not sole-sourcing. This, however, is disingenuously inaccurate. The Auditor General’s Report stated that based on documents seen, the contracts were awarded under the sole-sourcing method, which was approved by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB). Furthermore, even the restricted methodology would have been unlawful since a total of eighteen accountants and auditing firms were awarded contracts to perform the forensic audits. The restricted tendering methodology is reserved strictly for instances where there are few suppliers of certain goods and services. This was not the case given that most of the audit firms, if not all of the audit firms in Guyana have the capability to perform special audits of this nature.
Accordingly, the correct methodology would have been the open tendering process.
As such, his explanation provided that these audits were urgent to facilitate the transitionis arguably inexcusable and unacceptable.
Dr. Goolsarran further implicated himself when he disclosed that he advised the former finance minister, Winston Jordan, that he should not refer to the audits as “forensic audits”, because there were no allegations of fraud.
The question arises, therefore, how come he did not advice the former minister that he was breaching the Procurement Act in the award of those contracts?
Finally, it was brought to his attention the exhibition of hisinconsistencies in addressing issues of “conflict of interest” concerning the undersigned, in contrast toothermore legitimate, glaring, and evident issues of conflict of interest as regards the AFC: (i) the AFC’s leader and EMGL and (ii) an Executive Member of the AFC, who is also a member of the PPC. It was only after forcing the issue, he opted to address this in a convoluted manner, refusing to even name the individual, which was quite contrary to the manner in which he addressed the undersigned. Moreover, in relation to the conflict of interest involving the AFC leader and EMGL, the former AG sees no conflict of interest whatsoever, therein, although the AFC leader is an aspiring Presidential candidate, and although the AFC has a number of seats in the National Assembly.
So much so for Dr. Goolsarran’ s credibility and integrity.
“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.” — Bob Marley.