HEART/NSTA – $75 Million disbursed without Compliance Checks

Auditor General's Findings

The Auditor General’s 2019/2020 Annual Report found that the HEART/NSTA did not demonstrate that it effectively monitored the Career Advancement Programme Youth Empowerment Solution (CAP-YES), in keeping with the Project Charter and its own Policy, to mitigate key risks identified.

After an initial disbursement of $25 million in subventions to the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU), to administer the programme, HEART appeared not to satisfy itself that CMU complied with the established operating, reporting and expenditure control procedures, before making further disbursements totalling $50 million, bringing the total disbursed to $75 million.

While the AuGD was able to verify the existence of supporting documents for expenditure totaling $62.6 million, documents to support expenditure totalling $2.1 million were not provided. In March 2020, CMU returned $10.3 million – approximately one and a half years after the programme ended. With low certification, employment, career advancement and business opportunities outputs, HEART could not demonstrate that it received value from the reported $64.7 million spent on the programme.