Latest update February 6th, 2025 7:27 AM
NICIL supports Sithe Global’s $$M Amaila expense
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
Revelations by the various audit reports are endless. The forensic audit report into the operations of the
Former Executive Director of NICIL, Winston Brassington
National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) has revealed that its Chief Executive Officer, Winston Brassington, established an account in the name of Sithe Global and charged all expenditure it incurred for the project to that account.
Sithe Global is the company that had become both developer and investor in the Amaila Falls Hydro Electricity Project.
The company bought its developing licence from Makeshwar ’Fip’ Motilall, who was granted his by the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic Government.
Sithe Global officially withdrew as an investor in the project back in 2013 citing a lack of national consensus on the part of the Parliamentary opposition. The company had stated that it would be “forced’ to pull out of the project in the absence of such consensus. It had lobbied extensively, through PR work, to gain such a reality but that was to no avail.
By the time Sithe walked, NICIL has already incurred huge expenses on its behalf.
In an undocumented agreement, NICIL and Sithe had decided that NICIL would incur initial expenses for the Amaila project and Sithe would have refunded the money.
When departing, the company had owed NICIL $303M. However NICIL made provision for the write-off of $151.6M or 50 percent of Sithe Global’s debt.
Auditor, Anand Goolsarran
In his report, Goolsarran said that Brassington indicated that amounts expended on the project were treated as receivable from Sithe Global. He further stated that since the project had been aborted, the receivable amount from Sithe Global would have to be written off as “bad debt.”
Goolsarran said that in the NICIL draft financial statements for 2014 the sum of $151.6M indeed reflected the write-off as “bad debt”.
Goolsarran said that given the size of Sithe Global’s provision that had been made in NICIL’s accounts, it would have been appropriate for approval from the Minister before making the provision for the write off. He said that in any event, there was no evidence that NICIL Board specially approved the expenditure to be incurred on behalf of Sithe Global.
Goolsarran said that this is notwithstanding that the Board would have approved of the accounts.
“A provision for bad debts has the same effect on an entity’s results of operations as that of a write-off and is usually a precursor to the latter, hence the need to specifically involve NICIL’s board and the Minister.
“The fact that the board approved of the accounts is not enough,” said Goolsarran.
He added that despite the statement from the Executive Director that payments made on behalf of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project were recoverable from Sithe Global, amounts totalling $94.7M were charged to the expenditure of NICIL; this is separate from that which was charged to Sithe’s account.
A further amount of $5.3M was expended during the period January to May 2015 and charged to the expenditure of NICIL, resulting in an over-statement of NICIL’s expenditure of $100M and a corresponding understatement of the amount owed by Sithe Global.
Therefore, Goolsarran said that the total expenditure incurred on behalf of Sithe Global was $403.3M.
Goolsarran said that it is not clear how much of this expenditure relates to the construction of the Amaila Falls access road; how much was paid to Synergy Holdings before the contract was terminated; what procedures were followed leading to the award of the contract; how much remained recoverable from the contractor; and what procedures were followed in the selection of China Railway Group to complete the road. He said that it is also unclear how much was paid to China Railway and what is the state of completion of the road.
The government has spent more than US$42M to build a road to the hydropower site and it was said that Sithe Global invested some US$16M in the project.
It is unclear if that sum includes that which was incurred by NICIL.
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