When the Audit Began, the Locks Changed

When the Audit Began, the Locks Changed

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar–August 2026

The Guyana Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha is not merely confronting a dispute over a building, a temple, or personalities. It is confronting a far more consequential test: whether a statutory religious body can be restored to accountable governance when the very process of examining its books is allegedly met with obstruction.

That is the question now before the High Court.

Court-appointed managers Geeta Chandan-Edmond and Mahendra Mookram say they were locked out of the Maha Sabha’s management office at Kalyan Mall in July—cut off from administrative records, financial documents, procurement material, and membership information required to carry out the precise duties assigned to them by the court.

Let us be clear about what this means.

These were not private individuals wandering into an organization’s affairs. They were appointed by the High Court to manage the Maha Sabha, compile its membership register, bring overdue accounts under audit, and organise elections. If the managers’ affidavit is accepted, the lockout was not a petty internal quarrel. It was an apparent attempt to disable a court-supervised process.

And it came after audit work had begun to expose troubling matters.

General Secretary Sabita Lalu and member of SDMS,attorney Ms. Geeta  Chandon-Edmond

An audit reportedly found that General Secretary and Trustee Mahadai Lalu was indebted to the Maha Sabha in the sum of $1.38 million. The managers further allege that payments totalling $4.47 million were made in 2025 to a security service associated with Lalu while she held office, alongside $572,705 paid to former mayor and applicant Pandit Ubraj Narine.

Pt. Ubraj Narine

Together, the managers say, those payments accounted for more than half of the body’s 2025 expenditure—and were not supported by proper procurement records, contracts, or declarations of conflict.

Those are serious allegations. They are not findings of guilt, and no fair-minded observer should pretend otherwise. But neither should anyone trivialise them. Where a statutory organisation’s funds appear to flow to persons holding influence or office within that organisation, the burden is on those responsible to show that every transaction was authorised, necessary, documented, competitively procured where required, and free from self-dealing.

That is what accountability looks like.

A Test of Governance

The Maha Sabha’s leadership dispute has lasted for years, but age does not convert dysfunction into legitimacy. Nor does religious standing place a statutory body beyond ordinary principles of transparency, financial discipline, and fiduciary responsibility.

In fact, the opposite is true.

A religious institution entrusted with property, money, members’ confidence, and a public statutory identity carries a heightened obligation to conduct its affairs cleanly. Devotees should never be asked to choose between faith and accountability. The two must coexist.

The issue cannot be reduced to whether renovations were approved, whether worship was temporarily relocated, or whether particular personalities are liked or disliked. Those questions may be relevant and must be resolved on evidence. But they cannot eclipse the central matter: What did the audit reveal, where are the records, who approved the spending, and why were court-appointed managers allegedly prevented from accessing the documents needed to answer those questions?

The answer cannot be silence. It cannot be delay. And it certainly cannot be a change of locks.

The Suspicion Around Replacement

The reported effort to remove Chandan-Edmond from the court-appointed management structure deserves close scrutiny, particularly because it surfaced after the audit process reportedly began identifying financial irregularities.

There may be lawful grounds to challenge an interim manager. Parties in litigation have every right to seek relief before the court. But timing matters. Context matters. And public confidence matters.

Any attempt to replace a court-appointed manager while audits are underway must be tested against a simple question: would the change protect the Maha Sabha’s interests, or would it interrupt a process that is becoming uncomfortable for those whose conduct is under examination?

That question is especially important amid reports linking the proposed replacement to WIN Parliamentarian Vishnu Panday. If such a proposal is formally before the court, it must be disclosed plainly in filed documents. If it is not, it must not be circulated as established fact. The Maha Sabha’s members deserve transparency, not political whispers, factional manoeuvres, or trial by WhatsApp.

No one should be installed, removed, protected, or condemned on rumour.

But no one should be permitted to use litigation, religious sentiment, or organizational chaos as a shield against an audit either.

Preserve the Evidence

The High Court should move decisively to protect the integrity of its own order.

All Maha Sabha financial and administrative records—hard-copy files, minute books, receipts, payment vouchers, contracts, cheque stubs, bank statements, electronic files, emails, WhatsApp records, membership data, and procurement records—should be immediately secured and independently inventoried.

There must be no room for uncertainty about what existed before the lockout, what was accessed afterwards, and whether any records have gone missing, been altered, or been withheld.

The audit must proceed without intimidation. Any accountant retained to examine the Maha Sabha’s books should be free to work without harassment, interference, or pressure from any officeholder, trustee, employee, applicant, or faction.

If evidence establishes that money was improperly paid, conflicts were concealed, records were withheld, or court officers were obstructed, recovery and legal consequences must follow. If the allegations are disproved, that too should be established openly and conclusively.

The Maha Sabha cannot be rebuilt on selective outrage.

Faith Requires Clean Hands

For too long, institutions across Guyana have treated audits as threats rather than safeguards. That culture is corrosive. It teaches officeholders that records are personal property, that scrutiny is persecution, and that public or organizational funds can be managed without adequate explanation.

The Maha Sabha now has an opportunity to reject that culture.

Its members should demand audited accounts. They should demand a verified membership register. They should demand elections conducted under credible rules. They should demand that all persons entrusted with the body’s finances disclose conflicts and account fully for every dollar.

Most of all, they should demand that the court’s authority be respected.

The locks may have changed. But the larger question will not disappear: when the audit began, what were certain people so determined to keep behind closed doors?

The 592 Guardian