NICIL expenditure claims deceitful

Dec 18, 2015 News

– Linden IMC Chairman
By Enid Joaquin

Linden Interim Management Committee (IMC) Chairman, Orrin Gordon, reflecting on the findings of a recent forensic audit report of NICIL, has echoed the sentiments of the forensic auditor, Anand Goolsarran, who said that the whole thing” does not add up.”
The audit showed that Linmine’s total expenditure for the period 2002 to 2014 amounted to $8.6 billion with operating expenses amounting to some $2.144 billion.
“It does not add up; there is no way that Linmine which became a division of NICIL in 2004 could have incurred so much expense. He added that the whole thing is a “brazen attempt by NICIL to hoodwink the municipality and the community.”
He noted that were it not for the forensic audit, “we would not have known what was going on.”
“All this money that they’re claiming that they would have expended is a blatant lie, and I reject outright the amount, $122.342 million, that was quoted as being paid in rates and taxes. That is totally inaccurate.
“No more than $35 million was paid to the municipality, so what happened to the rest- the $80 or $90 million- Where it gone?
The IMC Chairman said that prior to the advent of the IMC at the end of 2003; Linmine had been paying about $5 million per year.
However after the transfer to OMAI in 2004- some assets, about half, went to OMAI.
“So it was half of that amount, which is $2.5 million that was being paid by Omai/ Bosai and the other half by the Linmine Secretariat, which comes under NICIL.
“From that time, how on earth could you reach to $122 million over a period of 13 years?
Gordon said that Linmine used funds from the Mackenzie/Wismar Bridge to pay staff and to maintain the operations of the Linmine secretariat.
“How then, you saying that Linmine is a burden to you? Linmine secretariat doesn’t owe any money. The Secretariat hasn’t done any major capital investment within that period to warrant the expenditure cited,” he declared.
Gordon said that NICIL would have sold 83 properties on South Mackenzie, including the old Surapana Golf course, for which it would have received millions of dollars. “So where has the money gone?”
He added that to date, the municipality has not received “a single cent” for rates and taxes since 2009, when those properties were sold, and that NICIL currently owes the municipality about $500,000, which he claims as `being an “extremely conservative” figure.
Sales from scrap iron was another revenue earner for NICIL, Gordon said, but yet the question remains, “Where the money gone?”
He also pointed to the Toucan Call Centre which recently ceased operations, and for which NICIL had been collecting rent. Gordon questioned what happened to that money.
In a story published recently, Gordon had demanded that NICIL release the $270 million being withheld from the municipality by the entity.
“Let them release the gravy train (bridge)! We need the money to take care of the municipality’s business!”
He had pointed out that NICIL had withheld some $270mil for the period 2012-2015.
Gordon had stated further that the withheld money is even more than that, if consideration was given to the fact that monies were withheld before 2012. Unfortunately the files containing the evidence were lost in the 2012 fire which destroyed the Linmine secretariat building.
Gordon noted that based on his extrapolation, the money withheld for the period before 2012 would amount to some $420.million, bringing the total amount to approximately $600 million.
Meanwhile according to the forensic audit report on the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), the company’s directors have apparently failed to properly account for millions worth in assets for Linden Mining Enterprise (LINMINE).
Chartered Accountant, Anand Goolsarran, found that NICIL directors pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into LINMINE and are unable to properly justify it.
Goolsarran said that NICIL’s total expenditure for the period 2002 to 2014 amounted to $8.6B. Its operating expenses, he said, amounted to $2.144 billion.
Goolsarran said that LINMINE accounted for $1.260 billion or 59 percent of the operating expenses, including salaries of 75 staff members ($983.319 million) and rates and taxes ($122.342 million).
LINMINE accounted for $1.914 billion or 22.3 percent of NICIL’s expenditure for the period 2002 to 2014.

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NICIL expenditure claims deceitful

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