– forensic audit report recommends By: Kiana Wilburg The report on the forensic audit into the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) is complete. It has been recommended that the entity be closed down and a small department be opened under the Ministry of Finance, if government deems it necessary.NICIL Head,Winston BrassingtonKaieteur News understands from very reliable sources that the recommendation has the support of several government officials.It was explained that the reason for such a recommendation was premised on the fact that NICIL was initially established for the purpose of privatization of state assets. That was done in two phases in the 1990’s.Since that phase ended years ago, the report recommends that there is no need for NICIL to remain a company. It says that it should be liquidated and government should make moves to establish a department to manage the assets being held by the company.Since the launch of a forensic audit into the operations of NICIL, several glaring breaches of the country’s financial regulations have been unearthed.Not only has the report on the forensic audit implicated the Company’s CEO, Winston Brassington, in committing some of those acts, but it has also named former Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh; former Head of the Presidential Secretariat,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, Dr. Roger Luncheon; other former members of the NICIL Board as well as former Cabinet Ministers and officials.Dr. Singh served as the Chairman of the Unit while Dr. Luncheon served as a Director. The audit, Kaieteur News understands, categorically states that there was misuse of public moneys by those office holders.It said, too, that they played an important role in one way or the other in providing the conditions necessary for some of the “unimaginable scales of corruption” to take place on the NICIL platform.Junior Finance Minister, Jaipaul Sharma, had confirmed that the report on the forensic audit speaks to three sections of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FM&AA) 2003.Junior Finance Minister, Jaipaul SharmaHe had said that the audit justifies holding Dr. Singh and other members liable for misuse of public monies. Section 48 of the FM&AA says, “A Minister or official shall not in any manner misuse, misapply, or improperly dispose of public moneys.”Section 85, he said, also outlines what can be deemed as the liability of an official. That section of the Act says that an official who falsifies any account, statement, receipt or other record issued or kept for the purposes of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act, the Regulations, the Finance Circulars or any other instrument made under the Act; conspires or colludes with any other person to defraud the State or make opportunity for any person to defraud the State; or knowingly permits any other person to contravene any provision of this Act, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable on conviction to a fine of $2 million and to imprisonment for three years.The report also speaks to the liability for loss of public moneys at NICIL as it refers to Section 49 of the Act, which says that if‘a loss of public monies should occur and, at the time of that loss, a Minister or official has caused or contributed to that loss through misconduct or through deliberate or serious disregard of reasonable standards of care, that Minister or official shall be personally liable to the Government for the amount of the loss.Minister Sharma had confirmed that there were various cases of public loss of monies at NICIL by certain officials and said that government has a responsibility to respect and follow through on the recommendations of strict penalties against those implicated.Sharma had said, “NICIL was being run in a haphazard way and made dangerous decisions that cost the company millions of dollars in losses. It placed the then government in a bad place. NICIL really was operating as the PPP’s greatest force in making corrupt acts realized. The more the forensic auditor keeps digging, the more dirt he finds on NICIL and how it operated.”With a new Board and Chairman in place, the government called on Brassington to explain NICIL’s investments into all projects over the years. He was also expected to state, honestly, the position of the company’s assets.NICIL’s new Chairman Dr. Maurice Odle had said that there has been one meeting thus far at which Brassington was told to prepare a “position paper” to say what policies and strategies were employed to justify investments made by the company into certain projects.He explained that the paper is expected to give good reasons for investments into the Marriott Hotel, the Berbice River Bridge Company and Pradoville Two scheme.The paper has since been submitted and the board is currently perusing it to make a decision on the way forward.
