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NCN under fire after Manager’s money goes missing
NCN’s Marketing Manager, Raymond Azeez
The reported theft of cash and gold from a senior manager of the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN), has Parliament’s largest Opposition faction raising questions.
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) yesterday wanted to know why Raymond Azeez, the entity’s Marketing Manager, kept personal property at NCN instead of his home.
“APNU is of the view that if the property involved in the theft belonged to the state – NCN, then Raymond Azeez should not have had it in his drawer. APNU asserts that if this was the personal property of Mr. Raymond Azeez he should have had it at his home, or somewhere other than his place of employment.”
On Monday, Azeez discovered that gold and cash, said to be around $900,000, went missing from his office.
A number of staffers, including cleaners, were reportedly being questioned by police.
“APNU feels strongly that the perpetrator of this crime (if found) should be duly charged and prosecuted according to the law.”
The 26-seat coalition was, however, highly critical of NCN and the Government over its systems.
It pointed out that following a report of misappropriation of funds involving a talent show being hosted by a major telephone company last year, a special audit found the need for the entire system of NCN to be revamped. The then Chief Executive Officer resigned while the Production Manager was suspended after he reportedly deposited over $3M to his personal account.
“The attitude of the Peoples Progressive Party/Civic Government to due regulatory and accounting procedures has created a condition where personnel at that entity – NCN, feel empowered to break the law and not be penalized,” APNU said yesterday.
The faction said that while the special report recommended an audit of the entire system of accounting of assets of that government agency, to date no action has been taken on this.
Earlier this year, to protest bias by NCN and unhappiness over the state of the management there, APNU said it voted down a budgeted subvention of $81M for NCN “and yet the government went ahead and spent that money.”
“It is APNU’s firm belief, that in this type of environment where employees see high ranking government officials behaving in such a manner, with no respect for the law, they feel justified in acting in a similar manner.”
While this newspaper was unable to make contact with current CEO, Michael Gordon, for a comment, media reports said that Azeez was saving the cash and gold to buy a car and that it went missing in the month of November.
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