Tens of millions given to Linden Co-op cannot be accounted for

An investigation is expected to get underway shortly in Linden for tens of millions that cannot be
accounted for. According to Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton the monies were secured by a
co-op society in Linden.
He made this disclosure  in an exclusive interview with www.aroundtheregions.com recently.
The Labour Minister disclosed that he has already instructed the Chief Co-Ops Officer Perlina
Grifth, to initiate an immediate investigation into how the millions of dollars cannot be
accounted for. The minister said that he intends to visit Region Ten again with the primary
objective of doing a special assignment. He said the monies the Co-op Society had secured was
from the Sustainable Livelihood Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) fund and this has raised
several concerns into how the programme was operated under the previous administration.
“Tens of millions of dollars were being made available to co-ops in the Sustainable Livelihood
Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) fund programme and my chief co-op officer is engaging
the person who was running the programme at the Ministry to get all the information and details
about these co-ops in Linden, so that we can go there to see their activities and interact to see
whether they exist or not.
Minister Hamilton stressed the importance of co-ops being transparent and accountable. He said
irrespective of the source of funding, co-ops are mandated to explain to his ministry where these
monies went. He dismissed the view that co-ops don’t have a responsibility to the government in
explaining how their monies are spent.  “We will ensure that they are transparent and to see, to
ensure that they can be transparent and accountable, we have to see where the money went, we
are not interested in who is running it,” he revealed.
Dismissing the views that because co-ops may have secured funding from EU and CIDA they
are not obligated to give the government an account of how the money was spent. This, he said,
is because ultimately the government is responsible for all monies going to co-ops.
“There are some people who have this attitude that CIDA or EU money is not government
money but it’s the Guyana government that is responsible for the intervention. It would be an
inflow coming to Guyana, whether its external money or our money you will have to account for
it,” the Minister stressed.
Declaring that he remains determined to ensure that co-ops are better managed, the Minister said
that he wants to see co-ops through Guyana taking a more effective and efficient approach to
running the co-ops. As such, he said that as the Minister with responsibility for such matters, he
will ensure that all co-ops are managed according to the stipulated regulations.

“I will ensure that people account for the monies given to them. I don’t know why people think
that if I give you a million dollar this year and you can’t account for it, why would I give you
more,” he questioned.
Going into what he dubbed as the questionable operations of the SLED programme. He stressed
that his ministry will be undertaking an investigation in Linden to ascertain how the monies that
cannot be accounted for was spent.
Declaring that an investigation will also be done in the manner and conditions under which the
monies through the SLED programme was disbursed, Minister Hamilton reiterated his views that
a full investigation must be undertaken.
“There will be an investigation into how under the SLED fund the monies were disbursed. The
officer that was responsible must give a document as to all the groups in Guyana that got monies,
who are their principals and for what projects these monies were given,” the Minister said.
The Minister declared that the Chief Co-op Officer has already been engaging the person at the
relevant ministry.
Meanwhile, several persons have expressed the view that the monies were used for political
purposes as the persons who heads the identified co-op is a prominent politician in the mining
community.