President Anthony Carmona says 70 percent of the $2.6 million referred to in theAuditor General’s report went to the paymentof “salaries of persons legitimately employedat the Office of the President, but it was classifiedas coming from the wrong vote.”
Speaking to the media yesterday, he said thefigures will show that in his tenure he returnedover $30 million in savings to the nationaltreasury.Carmona said the Auditor General’s reportfor 2015 never implied his office had ‘stolenany money, misused any money, misappropriatedany money, nor has he stated that theOffice of the President overspent or misusedmonies within its budget.
The Auditor General, he said, also made noallegation that the office bought “$2 millionworth of jewellery or at all.” In fact, he said theallegation was debunked by Auditor GeneralMajeed Ali when he was contacted by a reporter,but that information was never communicatedto the public by the reporter.
There had been reports of administrativeerrors in the Auditor General’s report totalling$2,685,236, quite different, he said, from the$2.8 million which had been reported.
Noting that incorrect classifications werenot exclusive to his office, he said the reportdemonstrates “many instances of incorrectclassifications by those entities falling underthe accounting jurisdiction of the Auditor General.”But he said a comprehensive response wassent to the Auditor General on April 29.
The President detailed how cost efficient aship he had been running. He said in March2013 the President’s budgetary allocation was$22,849,380; in 2014 $34,533,520, in 2015$37,676,070 and in 2016 $25,867,510. In 2013he said there was a savings of $2,350.769, in2014 a savings of $9,540,566 and in 2015 asavings of $12,718,756.That money he said was never utilised andsent back to the treasury.