Ashni Singh “shielded” NICIL’s books from external auditors – Goolsarran

May 18, 2016 News

By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
Former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh went to great lengths to ensure that the financial statements

Former Finance Minister and NICIL Chairman, Dr. Ashni Singh

of the National Industrial and Commercial Investment Limited (NICIL) were protected from certain exposures. At the time, Dr. Singh was also the Chairman of NICIL.
This was revealed in the NICIL forensic audit report done by Chartered Accountant, Anand Goolsarran.
Goolsarran noted that during the period August 2006 to 15 May 2015, Dr. Singh was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of NICIL. “His spouse was an Audit Director in the Audit Office with overall responsibility for the audit of public enterprises which includes the audit of NICIL.” Goolsarran said that this “arrangement” presented a “serious conflict of interest.”
The Auditor indicated that Dr. Singh was however adamant that NICIL’s audit must be done by the Audit Office.
Goolsarran reported that the minutes of a NICIL board meeting recorded the then Minister as having stated that he “supports outsourcing of the audits of the subsidiaries, but NICIL accounts need to be audited by the Auditor General”.
He further noted, “Given the state of affairs to have existed in the Audit Office, it would have been more appropriate for the audit of NICIL to have been outsourced.”
There were several other issues with NICIL’s auditing. There was a case where the Auditor General’s Office approved NICIL’s Consolidated Accounts before offering an opinion on the accounts of NICIL as a single company. Basically, the Audit Office approved the accounts of NICIL and all its subsidiaries before

Forensic Auditor,
Anand Goolsarran

reviewing the accounts of NICIL
Goolsarran said that NICIL produced consolidated accounts of itself and its “subsidiaries” from 2002 to 2006. Goolsarran said that an examination of these Consolidated Financial Statements for 2002 showed that the Board approved the accounts on 12 March 2010 while the Auditor General issued his opinion on them on 15 June 2010. However, the Auditor General’s opinion on the accounts of NICIL as an individual company was issued on 27 September 2012, that is, 15 months later.
“It should be emphasized that the audited consolidated financial statements could not have existed before the date when the accounts of NICIL, as an individual company, were certified by the Auditor General… A similar observation was made in relation to the consolidated accounts of NICIL for 2003, 2004 and 2005,” said Goolsarran.
Goolsarran reported that the Auditor General acknowledged that he issued his opinions on the consolidated financial statements of NICIL before his opinions on the financial statements of NICIL as an individual company.
“He, however, did not provide a satisfactory explanation why he had done so. NICIL’s board was also complicit in the violation of this fundamental principle regarding the preparation of group accounts when it approved the above consolidated financial statements without ensuring that NICIL as an individual company was audited first.”