Attorney General Anil Nandlall

Attorney General, Anil Nandlall on Thursday rejected claims of conflict of interest between Auditor Director in the Auditor General’s Office, Geetangali Singh and her husband, Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, saying that she had been acting in that position for several years and there has been no evidence of her work having been compromised.

“Since no scintilla of evidence has, thus far, been produced which establishes or would tend to establish that there is a single verifiable instance of an actuality of conflict of interest, one is forced to presume that the allegation of conflict of interest is predicated merely upon the fact of this marital relations and nothing else. In short, it is conflict of interest based upon perception and not actuality,” said Nandlall in a statement titled “Auditor General’s independence under siege: the case of Geetangali Singh.”

But Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Carl Greenidge said Mrs. Singh acting in that position for the past seven years, including a number while her husband has been Finance Minister, does not make her holding that office professionally ethical. “The fact that the person has been acting and sanctioned by the very government is no justification or no proof that it is not illegal,” Greenidge told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com).

Alluding to the fact that only recently government removed the Auditor General’s Office from being a budget agency to one that draws its financing directly from the Consolidated Fund in accordance with Guyana’s constitution, he noted that Mrs. Singh’s appointment is unacceptable on similar grounds. “The fact that something is happening doesn’t prove that it’s legal,” he added.

Asked whether there has been evidence of her acting improperly, Greenidge said the elimination of conflict of interest was aimed at avoiding the participants from committing a crime or error. Greenidge declined to be drawn into precise comment on why previous PAC Chairmen Winston Murray and Volda Lawrence had not raised any objections.

Labeling the criticisms by the opposition as “politically inspired and concocted,” the Attorney General noted that the Auditor General’s Office is constitutionally insulated from interference by any person or entity. Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc; the local affiliate of Transparency International, has also pointed to conflict of interest between the Singhs since she could pronounce on reports of state entities in which the Finance Minister may have a role to play.

That comment comes against the background of complaints being lodged against the Finance Minister, himself an accountant, to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Guyana and a Caribbean monitoring body for the professionals.

The Attorney General accused critics of hastily coming to a conclusion without becoming familiar with the relevant facts and circumstances aimed at conducting a mature analysis. “Instead, conclusions have been arrived at, inferences drawn and judgment rendered in a most heedless, capricious and arbitrary fashion.

Mrs. Singh began working at the Auditor General’s office on 1992 as an Audit Clerk and, according to Nandlall “she ranks among the most qualified. 

Arguing that Mrs. Singh’s performance is testimony to her credibility since a number of financial irregularities have been unearthed and several audit queries made. “The very opposition has made tremendous use of these irregularities and queries in their political pursuits. They continue to do so until now. As they did so, not once did we hear an objection to Mrs. Singh’s functioning in that office or her connection to the Minister of Finance. This alone denudes their current posture of any bona fides and credibility.”

Nandlall contended that since no one had objected to Mrs. Singh acting as Audit Director for the last seven years, one  can forcefully argue that their protracted prior failure to object amounts to an acquiescence and creates in favour of the Auditor General and Mrs. Singh, the benefit of a legitimate expectation that they will continue their no-objection. 

“The hypocrisy is nakedly revealed by the fact that the very Auditor General, audits the accounts of the same Parliament to which he is answerable. Yet, not a single utterance is made of this apparent conflict.  The squabble is much ado about nothing,” the Auditor General added.