Gail Alexan­der

Sev­er­al mil­lion was paid by var­i­ous Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment min­istries in rent for cer­tain un­oc­cu­pied build­ings over 2014 to 2015, in­clud­ing large sums for a St Clair prop­er­ty leased by the past Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion which the PP con­tin­ued to pay for, ac­cord­ing to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al's lat­est re­port.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al's re­port for Oc­to­ber 2014 to Sep­tem­ber 2015 was laid in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, along with the Pub­lic Ac­counts of T&T for 2015.

The re­port re­vealed ...nu­mer­ous in­stances at var­i­ous min­istries /de­part­ments where fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tions and in­struc­tions "con­tin­ue to be dis­re­gard­ed."

Find­ings in­clud­ed "ex­am­ples of weak­ness­es in the sys­tem of in­ter­nal con­trol and non-com­pli­ance with leg­isla­tive re­quire­ments and/or fi­nan­cial di­rec­tives." Con­cerns were al­so raised about lack of prop­er main­te­nance of records.

"The state of the In­ter­nal Au­dit func­tion in min­istries and de­part­ments re­mains a mat­ter of grave con­cern as in pri­or years," Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Ma­jeed Ali stat­ed.

On rent­ed prop­er­ties which re­mained un­oc­cu­pied, the re­port stat­ed that a to­tal of $47, 813,544.78 cents was paid for the pe­ri­od 2009 to 2015 for rental of the Alexan­dra Street, St Clair, build­ing.

That cost and pe­ri­od en­com­pass from the 2009 tenure of the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, when the build­ing was rent­ed, to 2015 when it was cat­e­gorised un­der the min­istry which was known as the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment un­der the past PP ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The re­port stat­ed that Cab­i­net in 2009 agreed to the lease/rental of of­fice space in a build­ing lo­cat­ed on Alexan­dra Street to ac­com­mo­date the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry.

Ap­provals were lat­er seen for the out­fit­ting of the build­ing. In­for­ma­tion re­ceived re­vealed that the lease was trans­ferred to the Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Min­istry (ef­fec­tive Au­gust 1, 2014) and then to the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment (ef­fec­tive May 19, 2015).

The re­port stat­ed the build­ing re­mained un­oc­cu­pied from in­cep­tion of the lease in De­cem­ber 2009. No new pay­ments were made af­ter June 2015.

Pay­ments on the lease com­prised the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry's pay­ment of $40,223,544.78 cents (De­cem­ber 1, 2009 to Ju­ly 31, 2014). The Hous­ing Min­istry al­so paid $6.9 mil­lion (Au­gust 1, 2014 to May 31, 2015) and the Prop­er­ty and Re­al Es­tate Di­vi­sion pay­ing $690,000 (June 1-30 2015).

The re­port al­so stat­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's of­fice leased a build­ing on Pem­broke Street, Port-of-Spain, in June 2012 at a month­ly rental of $115,000 and it re­mained un­oc­cu­pied un­til March of this year. The re­port stat­ed amounts to­talling $4.3 mil­lion were spent on out­fit­ting the build­ing. To­tal rental of $4.4 mil­lion was paid from the in­cep­tion to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2015.

It was al­so not­ed that the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry paid to­tal rent of $5.3 mil­lion over May 2012 to Sep­tem­ber 2015 for un­oc­cu­pied premis­es on Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain.

Rental was dis­con­tin­ued last month. The re­port not­ed the sit­u­a­tion con­tra­vened in­struc­tions to elim­i­nate non-es­sen­tial ser­vices and to use "pub­lic funds to the best ad­van­tage."

The Gen­der Af­fairs Min­istry al­so paid to­tal rent of $514,146.60 over Jan­u­ary 2015 to Sep­tem­ber 2015 for un­oc­cu­pied premis­es at Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain. The rental is said to be on­go­ing.

Rent to­talling $525, 718.33 was al­so paid for un­oc­cu­pied premis­es on High Street, Siparia, over June 2014 to Sep­tem­ber 2015. Rental con­tin­ued to De­cem­ber 2015, af­ter which the agree­ment was dis­con­tin­ued due to lack of an el­e­va­tor.

The En­er­gy Min­istry al­so paid to­tal rent of $851,999 over De­cem­ber 2014 to Sep­tem­ber 2015 for un­oc­cu­pied premis­es in La Ro­maine, re­port­ed­ly wait­ing to be out­fit­ted.

The re­port not­ed that the $275 mil­lion head of­fice for a Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Au­thor­i­ty at Ca­roni Set­tle­ment has been com­plet­ed and keys for the fa­cil­i­ty are ready for han­dover to the Trans­port Min­istry.

How­ev­er, the leg­is­la­tion to es­tab­lish the au­thor­i­ty has lapsed with the last Par­lia­ment term and that build­ing re­mains al­so un­oc­cu­pied.

On an­oth­er mat­ter, the re­port not­ed that vouch­ers to sup­port two trans­fers to­talling $396,900,677.00 and sched­ule of ac­counts record­ing two oth­er trans­fers, to­talling $101,307,055.73 to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, were not pro­duced for au­dit.

The re­port al­so not­ed con­struc­tion of the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry's $8 mil­lion South­ern Acad­e­my Ear­ly Child­hood Cen­tre was stopped in May 2015 af­ter a 20 per cent ad­vance pay­ment of $1.6 mil­lion was made to the con­trac­tor of the project.

It was not­ed that a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with the ex­e­cut­ing agency, the Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny, was not pro­duced. The project was stopped re­port­ed­ly due to "stake­hold­er re­lat­ed" mat­ters. The min­istry in­di­cat­ed on April 4 that the project was tem­porar­i­ly on hold.

Ma­jor weak­ness­es were not­ed in the sys­tem of the Min­istry of the Peo­ple's se­nior cit­i­zens' grant. A to­tal of 1,089 over­pay­ments, val­ued at $8.2 mil­lion, were found.

A sam­ple of over­pay­ments at the Ca­roni Lo­cal Board re­vealed four over­pay­ments to­talling $441,125.25 oc­curred, as peo­ple were is­sued with two file num­bers and re­ceived two sets of pay­ments.

Arrange­ments to re­ceive time­ly in­for­ma­tion on deaths from the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al to min­imise over­pay­ments have not "been re­alised," it not­ed.

MORE IS­SUES IN RE­PORT

�2 PAR­LIA­MENT: Con­stituen­cy em­ploy­ee da­ta forms re­quired to record de­tails of em­ploy­ees' terms and con­di­tions were not pro­duced at five con­stituen­cy of­fices vis­it­ed.

�2 IN­TEGRI­TY COM­MIS­SION: Showed in­for­ma­tion of 35 peo­ple em­ployed on con­tract for the year at a to­tal cost of $6.8 mil­lion but au­dits showed 41 em­ploy­ees on con­tract who re­ceived pay­ments to­talling $5.5 mil­lion.

�2 PO­LICE SER­VICE: Cab­i­net ap­proval not seen for the hir­ing of 163 peo­ple on two-year con­tracts with month­ly emol­u­ments to­talling $2.3 mil­lion.

�2 SPORT MIN­ISTRY: Min­istry in­fo showed 52 em­ployed on con­tract for the year, cost­ing a to­tal of $6.5 mil­lion, but au­dits showed an ad­di­tion­al 37 em­ploy­ees who re­ceived pay­ments to­talling $2.3 mil­lion.

�2 TER­TIARY ED­U­CA­TION: Doc­u­ments not pro­duced to sup­port pay­ment of $268 mil­lion to four agen­cies (un­der trans­fers/sub­si­dies). Doc­u­ments not pro­duced to sup­port pay­ment of $125 mil­lion.

�2 OVER­PAY­MENTS: A con­tin­u­ing prob­lem, par­tic­u­lar­ly not­ed at Ed­u­ca­tion, show­ing 107 cas­es to­talling a cost of $9.5 mil­lion, com­pared to $ 4.3 mil­lion re­cov­ered.

�2 EN­VI­RON­MENT: $888,892 pay­ment for con­struc­tion of box drains and ten bridge cross­ings but site vis­its re­vealed drains and on­ly three cross­ings com­plet­ed.

�2 IN­LAND REV­ENUE: Lim­it­ed scope on cer­tain da­ta de­nied by "in­vo­ca­tion of the of­fi­cial se­cre­cy pro­vi­sions of In­come Tax Act chal­lenged au­dit of rev­enue at the IR di­vi­sion. Weak­ness­es in in­ter­nal con­trol and lack of ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion are "red flags to em­pha­sise the need for more in­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion" in­to IR's op­er­a­tions.

�2 IR: Nu­mer­ous in­stances where doc­u­ments re­quest­ed for au­dit were not pro­duced.

�2 NA­TION­AL SE­CU­RI­TY: Con­tracts not pro­duced for three projects cost­ing a to­tal of $1.4 mil­lion.

�2 ES­TI­MAT­ED: 52 per cent of over­pay­ments from 2011 to 2015 were re­cov­ered over that pe­ri­od.