SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

An au­dit re­port in­to the Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of T&T (ASTT) by the Cen­tral Au­dit Com­mit­tee (CAC) of the Min­istry of Fi­nance has un­earthed in­creas­ing al­le­ga­tions of im­pro­pri­ety, mis­man­age­ment of pub­lic funds, breach­es, unau­tho­rised use and dis­pos­al of as­sets and un­law­ful pos­ses­sion of State lands.

The CAC con­duct­ed the au­dit dat­ed Au­gust 2019, on the re­quest of Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat.

The ob­jec­tives of the au­dit were to de­ter­mine whether gov­er­nance arrange­ments and re­port­ing process­es were ro­bust and con­form to le­gal, reg­u­la­to­ry and best prac­tices.

The CAC re­viewed the gov­er­nance and fi­nan­cial arrange­ments of the ASTT over the pe­ri­od 2016 to 2018 with spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to but not lim­it­ed to the fol­low­ing:

* A claim of $1,647,430.29 against the ASTT for un­paid rent.

* Pay­ment of month­ly fees to the ASTT board mem­bers.

* Main­te­nance of bank ac­counts by the ASTT.

The 32-page re­port stat­ed that in 2016 the min­istry wrote the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands re­quest­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged dis­tri­b­u­tion of State lands in Chatham by the ASTT to its mem­bers.

It al­so stat­ed that the ASTT had not sub­mit­ted ac­counts to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al for au­dit­ing for more than ten years.

“It pur­port­ed that the so­ci­ety was un­able to pre­pare it ac­counts for two rea­sons-the min­istry with­hold­ing fund­ing to the ASTT in 2013 and due to its op­er­at­ing records and as­sets held by its for­mer land­lord for non-pay­ment of rent.”

The re­port showed that the min­istry ex­pend­ed $32.8 mil­lion of State funds from 2007 to 2018 to the ASTT.

It fur­ther stat­ed that since 2008 the min­istry had re­ceived a myr­i­ad of re­ports and com­plaints about the so­ci­ety.

The au­dit found that the ASTT’s act was out­dat­ed and de­fi­cient to fa­cil­i­tate ad­e­quate gov­er­nance and over­sight of the so­ci­ety.

“There was lack of trans­paren­cy in the con­duct of its an­nu­al elec­tions, grow­ing con­cerns and dis­as­so­ci­a­tion by farm­ers groups and mem­bers of the so­ci­ety over the modus operan­di of the ASTT, lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty and re­port­ing to stake­hold­ers and fail­ure of the ASTT to pre­pare and sub­mit fi­nan­cial state­ments for more than ten years.”

The re­port fur­ther stat­ed there were in­creas­ing al­le­ga­tions of im­pro­pri­ety, dis­re­gard of rules of the ASTT, mis­man­age­ment of pub­lic funds, co-min­gling of funds, unau­tho­rised use and dis­pos­al of as­sets.

It al­so stat­ed that there was lack of over­sight by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and fol­low-ups on mat­ters af­fect­ing the pro­bity of ac­tions of the ASTT, in­clud­ing un­law­ful pos­ses­sion of State lands, usurp­ing the role and au­thor­i­ty of ASTT’s sec­re­tary, in­tim­i­da­tion of pub­lic ser­vice staff and fail­ure by the so­ci­ety to abide by de­ci­sion and rec­om­men­da­tions of the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry.

Two au­dits con­duct­ed in 2012 by the min­istry In­ter­nal Au­dit Unit showed that ASTT’s ac­count­ing prac­tices were poor and lacked prop­er over­sight in the ex­pen­di­ture of funds.

It al­so stat­ed that in­ter­nal con­trols were weak and this ex­posed the or­gan­i­sa­tion to ma­te­r­i­al mis­state­ments in its fi­nal re­ports and the like­li­hood of er­ro­neous de­ci­sions and the “pos­si­bil­i­ty of mon­ey be­ing ma­nip­u­lat­ed for pri­vate gain.”

Some of the find­ings from the In­ter­nal Au­dit re­vealed:

Cheque pay­ments were is­sued with­out ver­i­fi­ca­tion of bank bal­ances, cash book was not bal­anced at the end of the work­day, de­posit slips did not agree with sub­scrip­tion cash book nor bank state­ment, cor­rec­tion flu­id and pen­cil mark­ings were preva­lent on ac­count­ing records, de­duc­tion made from cer­tain staff for ar­rears of salary was nev­er re­mit­ted to the Board of In­land Rev­enue.

To ex­er­cise some con­trol over the man­age­ment of funds at the ASTT, the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and the ASTT signed a MOU in Jan­u­ary 2013 which set down spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions for the use of pub­lic funds.

How­ev­er, the au­dit showed there was non-com­pli­ance with such MOU as funds con­tin­ued to be de­posit­ed in­to the ASTT’s reg­u­lar ac­count and not a sep­a­rate bank ac­count as re­quired.

“It was found that the ASTT pres­i­dent was paid a du­ty al­lowance of $6,500 per month con­trary to the MOU.”

The re­port point­ed out that the act gov­ern­ing the ASTT was out­dat­ed and de­fi­cient to fa­cil­i­tate ad­e­quate gov­er­nance and over­sight.

It was rec­om­mend­ed that the ASTT’s act be re­pealed and the min­istry im­me­di­ate­ly stops pay­ment of month­ly stipend to mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee of Man­age­ment and con­sid­er com­mis­sion­ing a foren­sic au­dit in­to the ASTT, giv­en the pletho­ra of al­le­ga­tions against them.

Pres­i­dent of the ASTT Dhano Sookoo in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia said hav­ing ex­am­ined the re­port she ob­served there was no sig­na­tures or names to the au­dit.

“All I am say­ing I don’t know if it is a valid doc­u­ment.”

She said no one from the Min­istry of Fi­nance vis­it­ed the ASTT’s of­fice or in­formed her that an au­dit was be­ing con­duct­ed.

How­ev­er, Sookoo said she re­ceived “a doc­u­ment” from the PS and has giv­en an un­der­tak­ing of a date for a re­sponse.

“I am go­ing to give my re­sponse with all the back­up doc­u­men­ta­tion that is in my pos­ses­sion.”

She said the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture has been spend­ing the ASTT’s mon­ey.

Sookoo for­ward­ed a let­ter dat­ed No­vem­ber 2, ad­dressed to Ramb­harat which stat­ed that since mid-2013 to cur­rent, the min­istry took full con­trol over the ASTT’s an­nu­al bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion.

“Re­cent in­for­ma­tion dis­cov­ered through my lim­it­ed au­thor­i­ty notes that there has been on­go­ing fi­nan­cial dis­crep­an­cies and mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of the so­ci­ety’s funds at your min­istry,” the let­ter stat­ed.

“I am not a one-man team. The ASTT has a board and what­ev­er de­ci­sion is to be tak­en the board will take those de­ci­sions,” Sookoo de­fend­ed her po­si­tion.

Ramb­harat in a What­sapp mes­sage said the au­dit re­port was sent to the ASTT in the nor­mal course of things to get their com­ments and in par­tic­u­lar the re­sponse of of­fi­cers iden­ti­fied in the re­port.

“A dead­line for the ASTT’s re­sponse was giv­en by the PS. It is when those re­spons­es are re­ceived and con­sid­ered by the PS, the next step will be de­ter­mined. The au­dit re­port spec­i­fies that based on nu­mer­ous is­sues which came to my at­ten­tion and were passed to var­i­ous PSs in the min­istry to re­view and ad­vise me. I took the steps of re­quest­ing the au­dit. I am clear in my mind that there are is­sues to be ad­dressed in the ASTT and I have al­ways been ready to deal with those is­sues once the facts were known to me.”