Public audits can be used as a tool to identify and tackle inefficiency, mismanagement, waste, and fight corruption if lawmakers take them seriously and act on their recommendations. For the fiscal year, 2017, taxpayers lost more than $1 billion in overpayments to contractors, payments for goods without any vouchers, and payments for good that were not delivered, according to the Auditor General’s report. Public audits are meant to provide lawmakers and taxpayers with an assessment of how well public agencies delivered public services, whether they have operated within their budgets, and more importantly, whether they have executed their functions consistent with good public financial management practices.

Regrettably, the only winner of the 2018 budget is the government, not the hard working Guyanese families struggling to make ends meet, agriculture and low-skilled workers searching for good paying jobs to support their families, or small businesses struggling to make payroll. The growing cost of government administration consumes significant amount of resources that could be better use to benefit families and businesses. Despite increasing total spending, the budget cuts funding for critical sectors and is unlikely to stimulate job creation and economic growth.

While there is no way of knowing what the government priorities are until the budget is presented, it is important to reflect on the state of the economy and more importantly the policy and budget decisions of the 2017 budget that contributed to the current economic distress. Despite record level government spending, the economy remained in peril with high-risked growth, high unemployment, severe poverty, rising crime, and low consumer confidence as funding for key sectors were diverted to a growing appetite of the government administration costs. Fortunately, there are common sense policies the government can take to boost the economy and promote widespread economic prosperity.