Latest update January 11th, 2025 4:10 AM
Latest News
- Govt, US-Exim Bank sign US$527 million for GTE project
- Rystad Energy issues misleading analysis on Guyana’s share from ExxonMobil contract
- Deaths from Israeli attacks in Gaza undercounted by 41 percent, study finds
- PNC calls for doubling of minimum wage, tax free threshold to be increased to $400,000 monthly
- Pensioner dies at CJIA while waiting to board flight to New York
New MP, Donna Mathoo, was cleared of NCN’s fraud allegations- Chairman/CEO Woolford
The state-owned National Communications Network (NCN) has come out in defence of newly sworn-in Member of Parliament, Donna Mathoo.
NCN’s Chairman/CEO, Enrico Woolford
Yesterday, the entity’s Chairman/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Enrico Woolford, insisted that as far as the fraud allegations against Mathoo are concerned, that matter has been “settled”.
This, he stressed, is having regards to the fact that allegations in this country are not indictment, and indictments are not convictions.
“At the end you can make any allegations. I can make allegations about you or anybody else but that does not mean that that is guilt. Allegations are not equivalent to guilt.”
He said that Mathoo has answered the investigators…has answered all the questions.
“In this country we have to be very careful about allegations.”
On Friday, Mathoo, the Berbice Branch Manager of NCN was one of four persons sworn in to replace the ministers who resigned due to court rulings over dual-citizenship.
Mathoo, in a public statement, which was carried by Kaieteur News in April 2018, had said that she was asked in 2017
to proceed on leave to facilitate an investigation.
“I proceeded on leave on March 29, 2017 after which date the investigation commenced. During the course of the investigation, Mr. Omadatt Ramnarine’s services were terminated by the NCN. I was provided with a copy of the findings of the investigation.
New MP for the AFC, Donna Mathoo
No allegation of misconduct against me was contained in the findings. After due consideration and deliberation, I was invited to resume duty on 5th March 2018.”
However, according to a letter to Mathoo dated April 13, 2017, from then NCN’s chief, Lennox Cornette, who has since died, she was implicated by employees in a racket to hide cash received for advertisements.
In the letter captioned “Financial Irregularities at Berbice Branch”, an audit of transactions at the NCN branch expressed the opinion that staffers have defrauded the state-owned media company in excess of $500,000 monthly starting in December 2015.
The staffers used fictitious invoices, receipts and broadcast logs.
“It is evident that the fictitious documents issued to customers were done to conceal the case collected since our official documents carry a sequential numbering that are tracked daily for any breaks,” Cornette had told Mathoo in the letter sending her off on leave.
According to the NCN chief, in the letter to Mathoo, staffers gave statements “which implicate you as part of the financial irregularities.”
Mathoo was given until April 18, 2017, to respond to the findings of the audit. She was told to remain on administrative leave.
Cornette disclosed then that in addition to paper trail evidence, NCN and auditors were in possession of two video ads to supplement the evidence.
The advertisements were related to the Country Pride programme.
Among other things, the internal audits found that there were several instances of fictitious receipts to customers; creation of separate logs to air ads and the concealing of cash paid for the ads and verbal instructions to staff to air advertisements and private programmes.
There were also indications that the destruction of fake logs and receipts were ordered before the NCN internal probe started.
There was also evidence that staffers were made to sign blank petty cash vouchers for travelling and then a higher amount was inserted.
“Specifically, the audit has found evidence of 724 advertisements on fake broadcast logs as well as several fake receipts. The matrix that follows gives details of 300 advertisements, aired for which revenues collected were not handed over to the company,” Cornette said in his letter.
In April 2018, the issue of Mathoo resuming her job at that Berbice branch was raised at the monthly statutory meeting at the Regional Democratic Council, Region Six.
Several persons including the Regional Chairman, David Armogan, and the Community Development Officer for Region Six, Barbara Pilgrim, expressed their disapproval at the status of the investigation.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
Dem signs need calibrating
Dem Boys Seh… Kaieteur News- Dem boys bin pass one of dem fancy speed meter signs wah de guvament put up fuh tell drivers... more
Forget Begging Rich Nations: Caribbean Countries Should Act to Save Themselves
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- It has long been evident that the world’s richest nations, especially those responsible... more
Weekend Cartoon
