Persad-Bissessar: Discrepancies in covid19 relief
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar called for transparency and accountability in the provision of relief during the covid19 pandemic, on Wednesday as she led her bench s response in the mid-year budget review as the House of Representatives debated the Finance (Supplementation and Variation of Appropriation) (Financial Year 2021) Bill, 2021.
As she began, she coughed slightly and told MPs she had taken a PCR test to imply she did not have covid19 but simply needed a sip of water.
Persad-Bissessar alleged a discrepancy between the $57 million allocated to buy 100,000 market boxes by a Cabinet Minute of May 12 and a $45.6 million figure cited by Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat. She said the Cabinet Minute had said each market box would cost $573, but Rambharat in Standing Finance Committee had put the cost at $456.
Reginald Dumas
NOW that this year’s THA election is over, I’d like to go back to one of the major issues of the campaign: the accounting practices of the THA. I’ve written about these many times before, always in a fog of unhappiness. That fog has thickened.
Two recent documents are relevant: (i) a management letter of November 12, 2020 from a member of the staff of the Auditor General to the THA Chief Administrator on the audit of the THA’s Financial Statement for the year ended September 30, 2016, and; (ii) a final report of December 10, 2020 from the Auditor General to Parliament and the Minister of Finance.