Guyana Chronicle did little to collect $M owed by advertisers

Jun 04, 2016 News

A special audit report on the Guyana National Newspaper Limited (GNNL), publisher of the Guyana Chronicle, has found that the entity did little to collect millions of dollars owed by advertisers.

For GNNL Chairperson, Marcia Nadir-Sharma

As far back as December 2011, the state-owned newspaper was owed as much as $60M.
This crept up to $102M at the end of last year.
The newspaper’s circulations and finances were in deep trouble last year when the new administration took over.
It was known that political interference and clear biasness helped worsen the fortunes.
The audit, conducted by accounting firm, Harry Parmesar, explained that its scope included a determination of the entity’s adherence to and fulfilment of principles of corporate governance in all aspects, including its interpretation of its mission, adherence to legal or statutory and policy instruments and good practices.
The audit was also to assess and test systems and detect any instances of corporate malfeasance and inefficiency for remedial and/or judicial interventions and systems realignment.
The firm was also to determine the authenticity and validity of significant commercial and financial transactions entered into by the entity with related parties, suppliers and customers and measure the extent of potential prejudice the entity may have suffered through such dealing, if any.
In its opinion, Parmesar concluded that the Board of Directors did not execute its duties with due diligence, skill, care and prudence.
That Board up to May last year was chaired by Marcia Nadir-Sharma with the Directors being Jason Abdulla; Vidyawattie Looknauth; Jawahar Persaud; Hydar Ally, Tota Mangar and Kwame McCoy.
The entity appeared not interested in ensuring that its financial statements were up-to-date with the last audit completed for 2013.
“There was poor oversight over trade receivables with a balance of $102,489,156 outstanding as at 31 May 2015.”
The top 10 customers owed $88.98M as at May 31, 2015.

Former Director, Kwame McCoy

“There is no Internal Audit Department. Statutory records were not maintained by the company.”
According to the audit report, based on review, it was found that a few advertisements were not
invoiced to Video Mega Production – an agent for the coalition government of the A Partnership
for National Unity (APNU)/Alliance for Change (AFC). That company owed over $263,000.
With regard to the large amount of money owed by advertisers, the Government Information Agency (GINA), which places ads on behalf of ministries and other government entities, was the biggest culprit, owing over $74M at the end of last year.
Video Mega, a company associated with Minister of Tourism, owed $3M. The National Communications Network had $1.5M.
Among other notable findings was the fact that nine vehicles, not being owned by GNNL, were allowed to collect over $2.5M in gas last year.
Management of the company later explained that six of the nine vehicles were rentals.