Holding the NBS up to public scrutiny

Apr 11, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
It is extremely troubling to read in various newspapers and other internet sites that are out there, about some of the dealings going on with the New Building Society. I find it particularly disturbing that Dr. Ashni Singh would go onto the floor of parliament and state that NBS “disburses record-breaking $4.2B in mortgages, earns $772M profit” per your article dated April 4, 2012, but with no other supporting facts which are all important to understand the health of this institution. We need a complete report not bread crumbs.
I think your newspapers owe the public greater scrutiny of these statements by requesting from NBS more information to backup or explain these “record” successes of NBS.
First of all, we the public would like to know how much did NBS pay out in dividends compared to the past five years, with these record earnings we should expect shareholders to be getting record dividends also correct? This is a fair ask by your stellar reporting organization.
I would also encourage you to ask NBS as well as Ashni Singh formally to provide us with audited statements from NBS so that we the public can review these books for ourselves. Our President speaks a good game but the honeymoon is official over, we want to know in more detail why NBS has moved from external independent auditors to internal auditors.
The world over, especially in light of Madoff and Enron etc., is demanding more independent auditors and tighter controls as we have seen introduced in the US by Sarbanes Oxley etc.?
The government of Guyana seems to feel that internal and external audits are one and the same and they are interchangeable, this could not be further from the truth. External CPA’s are required to audit the work of internal auditors and internal auditor also do additional work not required by external CPA’s.
NBS needs to be treated like any other financial institution and NIS also should follow similar standards whereby the Board of Directors of each state-chartered bank, savings association, and savings bank must elect an Audit Committee composed of not less than three members, a majority of which should be outside directors not the directors that are part of the NBS board.
The Audit Committee should be required to engage a CPA firm and secure an annual examination of the financial condition of the institution.  The Audit Committee should also responsible for overseeing the annual external audit programme and shall require that a written report of the external audit be presented to the Board of Directors and documented in the board minutes.
Some of the other questions that Kaieteur News needs to ask is to show what percentage of mortgages was given to various individuals. You do not need the name of the individuals but you need to see, for example, of the largest amount of money loaned went to one individual or several, were these commercial loans or mortgages to a few individuals or were these a multitude of mortgages to various individuals, this would help anyone interested in NBS and its health to determine if there is any risk that could potentially harm NBS and its shareholders.
These are all the important facts and figures missing from Dr. Singh’s brave pronouncement in parliament.
You owe it to your readers to ask for an explanation of these questions. I would also like to query how much the bank is spending on entertainment, I have been provided with certain details alleging that certain board members are submitting their expenses to the bank to be paid for rum sessions at different watering holes across the country.
These are stiff accusations that audited financials reviewed by the press and parliament should be able to disprove to show that our Minister of Finance and Dr. Gopaul the Chairman of NBS are stalwarts of honor and fiscal responsibility who would not tolerate this kind of improper transactions.
Since Dr. Ashni Singh proclaimed that the PPP is the most transparent government that is above board and that has put the PNC to shame with their transparency and openness to scrutiny and since our President has emphatically stated that there is no widespread fraud and corruption going on the government should have no problems providing this information to the public and as a matter of fact you in the press owe it to the government and society to test these statements made by the government as is done in all democratic societies which is again another major trait that the PPP and all Guyanese should be proud of.
I would also encourage you to start asking questions about this Maurice Arjoon case. The public really wants to know the truth.
I also feel that the opposition in parliament should be equally concerned and should be asking Dr. Singh and Minister Gopaul who are both involved in NBS these questions in parliament and let us get it on the Hansard the official answers to these questions, because if we get any false answers on the floor of parliament there will be serious consequences.
NBS is a public entity and it is extremely important and I am sure the President and Dr. Singh will be more than happy to prove that there is no hanky panky going on at NBS. They will be more than happy to furnish the necessary information to the press and parliament in this new era of celebrated transparency promoted by the PPP and Dr. Singh himself.
I would like to congratulate President Ramotar for ushering this new era of transparency and his embrace of the independent media which is consistent with the ideals of Dr. Jagan.
John B.Singh

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