> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Santo Domingo Will Publish Four Years of Audits. Georgetown Has Not Missed the Deadline in Fourteen. - URL: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/caribbean-audit-publication-contraloria-guyana-auditor-general-2026/ - Published: 2026-09-10T19:51:01.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-13T05:14:54.000Z - Description: The Dominican Republic will publish Contraloria audits from 1 October, covering August 2020 to August 2024, after the reports were found closed to the public. Guyana's Auditor General met his statutory deadline for the fourteenth consecutive year. - Author: Theon Alleyne - Tags: Compliance, Governance, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Barbados, Caribbean **Quick summary:** The Dominican Republic will publish Contraloría audits of public institutions from 1 October, covering August 2020 to August 2024, after the reports were found to have stayed closed to the public. Guyana's Auditor General met his statutory deadline for the fourteenth consecutive year in September 2025. By LCN Business Desk Two audit offices in this region publish on very different terms, and the difference is not diligence. It is where each one sits in the constitution. ## What did Abinader actually order? Dominican President **Luis Abinader** has directed the **Contraloría General de la República (CGR)** to publish its audits of public institutions from **1 October**, with reports released progressively as each is completed. They cover the first four years of his administration, **August 2020 to August 2024**. Portada reported that the announcement came on a Thursday night, days after **Diario Libre** revealed that the audit reports had stayed closed to public access. El Día reported that the move followed civil society pressure, with organisations including **Participación Ciudadana** raising concern about the lack of access. ## Why were the reports not public already? Because of what the CGR is. El Día reported that the Contraloría had declined to publish its results, saying the findings **awaited formal approval by the Executive**. That sentence is the whole institutional story. The CGR is an **internal-control** body. El Día reported that its audits run independent of the external oversight carried out by the **Cámara de Cuentas de la República Dominicana**, which is the country's external auditor. An internal-control office audits the administration from inside it and reports upward. Whether its findings reach the public is therefore a decision the administration takes. ## How is Guyana's arrangement different? Guyana's **Auditor General** is an external auditor who reports to the legislature, not to the Cabinet. [Stabroek News reported](https://www.stabroeknews.com/2025/09/26/news/guyana/auditor-general-submits-report-on-2024-public-accounts/?ref=lacaribenanews.com) that Auditor General **Deodat Sharma** presented his 2024 report on the public accounts to the **Speaker of the 12th Parliament, Manzoor Nadir**, on 25 September 2025\. It was his **21st submission since taking office and the 14th consecutive time he met the statutory 30 September deadline**. Sharma joined the Audit Office of Guyana in April 1980 and has served as Auditor General since 1 January 2005, [the office records](https://www.audit.org.gy/site/index.php/about/the-auditor-general?ref=lacaribenanews.com). The report reviews the public accounts and the accounts of ministries, departments and regions. It is laid before the National Assembly, and it becomes a public document at that point. No approval from the Executive stands between the audit and the reader. **Nobody in Georgetown has to order the Auditor General's report published**, because publication is the mechanism rather than a decision. That is the contrast worth holding in mind when a president announces one. ## Does the rest of the region work the same way? Broadly, the Commonwealth Caribbean follows the Guyana pattern. Barbados maintains an **[Audit Office](https://bao.gov.bb/?ref=lacaribenanews.com)** that conducts financial audits of the government's financial statements, the public accounts, on the Westminster model of an external auditor reporting to Parliament. The region also has a shared institution for this work. **CAROSAI**, the Caribbean Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions, exists to promote the exchange of ideas and experience in government auditing among the region's audit offices, and sits within the global INTOSAI structure. A supreme audit institution is, by definition, the external auditor. Internal control is a separate function and a separate office. So the Dominican announcement is not the region catching up. It is one country's internal-control body being told to do something its external auditor already does, and the reason the order was needed at all is that the CGR reports to the Executive. ## Why should a compliance officer read this? Because published audit findings are an input to country risk, and country risk is priced. A firm bidding on public contracts, a bank opening a correspondent relationship, a development financier assessing a borrower: each of them reads what the audit record says, and each of them notices when four years of it were unavailable. This newspaper has reported the same measurement problem from the accounts side in [Suriname, where an airline drew state support against long-unapproved accounts](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/suriname-slm-subsidy-debt-audit-accounts-2026/), and from the procurement side in [what Germany does about corrupt contractors](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/germany-procurement-self-cleaning-guyana/). There is a caution that belongs beside any announcement of this kind, and this newspaper has already reported it about the same class of measure. In [Mexico Ordered Monthly Contract Disclosure. It Is Suspended From the Standard](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/mexico-transparency-decree-eiti-suspension-guyana-2026/), a government announced disclosure while sitting outside the international standard that would have verified it. **An order to publish and a published document are different things.** The test for the CGR is what appears on 1 October, and what appears in the months after it. The region's financial-integrity obligations run through the same machinery, as the [Lima compliance congress](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/lima-compliance-congress-caribbean-gafilat-2026/) set out. ### What does the title card show? The title card carries a table headed "Who the auditor reports to", under the line "Publication follows the reporting line, not the diligence". - Contraloría General, Dominican Republic: internal control, reporting to the Executive. - Cámara de Cuentas, Dominican Republic: external audit. - Auditor General, Guyana: external audit, reporting to the National Assembly. - Audit Office, Barbados: external audit of the public accounts. - 1 October, the date Dominican audits begin publishing, covering August 2020 to August 2024\. Source: Portada, Diario Libre, El Día. - 14, the consecutive years Guyana's Auditor General met the statutory 30 September deadline. Source: Stabroek News. - 21, the number of submissions by Deodat Sharma, Auditor General since 2005\. Source: Stabroek News and the Audit Office of Guyana. - CAROSAI, the region's body for supreme audit institutions, within INTOSAI. - Quoted on the card: the findings "awaited formal approval by the Executive", the Contraloría's stated reason for not publishing its results, reported by El Día. - Noted on the card: nobody has to order the Auditor General's report published, because publication is the mechanism rather than a decision. ## Frequently Asked Questions What exactly is being published, and when? The Contraloría General de la República will publish audits of public institutions from 1 October, covering August 2020 to August 2024, released progressively as each report is completed. What prompted the order? Portada reported it followed Diario Libre's revelation that the reports had stayed closed to the public. El Día reported that civil society organisations, including Participación Ciudadana, had raised transparency concerns, and that the CGR had declined to publish, saying findings awaited formal approval by the Executive. What is the difference between the CGR and the Cámara de Cuentas? El Día reported that the CGR's audits are internal-control work, independent of the external oversight carried out by the Cámara de Cuentas de la República Dominicana. Internal control audits from within the administration. External audit sits outside it. How does Guyana's Auditor General compare? Stabroek News reported that Deodat Sharma's 2024 report was his 21st submission and the 14th consecutive time he met the statutory 30 September deadline. The report is laid before the National Assembly and becomes a public document. What is CAROSAI? The Caribbean Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions, the regional body for government audit offices, within the global INTOSAI structure. --- An audit office that reports to the Executive publishes when the Executive agrees. An audit office that reports to Parliament publishes because the statute says when. The Dominican Republic has ordered four years of reports into the open, and the order was necessary because of which of those two offices holds them.