PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has made it clear that the People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R) will have to account for the $100M provided by government for the payment of scrutineers for that party.

The Head of State who expressed grave concern over the issue, told the media at State House on Saturday in an informal press brief that the government will not allow this matter to rest.

“Clearly the money has been misappropriated and misused. They have not accounted for a single cent as yet and from what I gathered there are some scrutineers that have fictitious names receiving payment, I have gathered also that some of the scrutineers are not receiving the full amount of money…We intend to get to the bottom of this, they will have to account for every cent of the resources transferred to them,” the President emphasized.

On May 8, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon indicated that information has been provided that the main Opposition Party received $100M from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to pay Opposition party scrutineers and has not accounted for the money over the past four months.

President Jagdeo said that the Ministry of Finance which is charged with the responsibility of such matters has since instructed GECOM not to make further payments until a detailed report from the party is provided on the period in question.

“From what I gather there is no report so far. The reports will be audited by the Auditor General. So if they put fictitious names there, we are going to find the fictitious people, we are going to ask them if they received money and how much they received and we are going to hold the people who signed that return responsible,” Mr. Jagdeo declared.

Since the statement by the government’s spokesman, PNCR Leader Robert Corbin has rejected the charges saying that the government’s intention is to divert attention from the real issues which relate to the rising cost of living. He said he knew nothing of the government’s claim adding that the matter might be one for GECOM and the Ministry of Finance.

President Jagdeo charged: “He (Corbin) should not try to shift the issue over to the Chief Scrutineer (Amna Ali) who just collected the cheque on behalf of the PNC. So when Corbin says that the PNC did not receive any money and that it is the Chief Scrutineer, she has collected the money on behalf of the PNC.”

The Head of State also lamented that government may have been in retrospect wrong by not allowing the other opposition parties to receive money for their scrutineers pointing to the Alliance for Change (AFC) who had been calling for such.

“We should have known better that anytime you put state money into the hands of the PNC they would misuse it, spend it other than for the intended purposes,” the President contended.

The government through Dr, Luncheon has been registering its concerns about the slow pace of the National Registration exercise and the various problems being encountered by citizens when they attempt to get registered. Registration has been ongoing in preparation for the country’s Local Government Elections.

The President pointed out that Guyana is one of the few countries that provides funds for opposition parties to pay their scrutineers but noted that this was done mainly because the government wanted a clean and clear registration process.

“Let me make it clear that we decided to give this large sum of money to the scrutineers because we wanted a clean voters’ list and we didn’t want the PNC to make the excuse that they did not have adequate personnel on the ground… without that money I doubt whether the PNC could have been able to organize a better protest because they are just bankrupt of ideas,” the President declared. (GINA)