NFMU Forensic Audit report reveals…Quark, E-Networks owe NFMU $60M

May 21, 2016 News

A forensic audit report into the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) has revealed that two companies with close links to the political opposition owe the state entity millions of dollars in fees.

The report which was prepared by Ram and McRae , Chartered Accountants, noted that E-Networks Inc. and Quark Inc., “companies controlled by persons with a strong political connection to the PPP/C Administration”, were not invoiced on a timely basis and ignored the NFMU invoices for long periods of time without any follow up action by the NFMU.
The auditors said that following their request, the NFMU estimated that fees owed by E-Networks Inc. and Quarks Inc. at December 31, 2014 amounted to $31 million and $29 million respectively. E-Networks is owned by Vishok Persaud. Quark Inc. is managed and controlled by Brian Yong.
Both individuals benefitted generously from the arbitrarily granted frequency licenses under the Jagdeo regime. The forensic team stressed that these users should be billed and their outstanding debt resolved.
Junior Finance Minister, Jaipaul Sharma, had spoken on this issue before the forensic audit report was released yesterday.
Sharma had said that it was clear that the NFMU was giving “PPP’s big boys big waivers.”
Minister Sharma continued, “There was just no proper management at this unit. There were instances where you could see that they just lost out on millions of dollars worth in fees that they should have ensured they collected. There were some defaulters as well, and the agency just took no action against them.”
He added, “(NFMU) could have collected a lot more revenue. Instead (the entity) allowed a lot of favouritism to take place and as such they lost millions of dollars in revenue. They allowed their big PPP boys to slip under the radar while others were called upon to pay their dues.
“In fact, they weren’t collecting from two of their PPP big boys for some time. It was a lot of unfairness that was going on at that agency.”
Sharma said that the level of corruption which was taking place at the agency points to the incompetency of those who are managing it while reminding that the Head of the entity is Valmiki Singh.
The Junior Finance Minister said that the revelations of some of the forensic audits thus far, vindicate the concerns the APNU+AFC had regarding the lack of accountability under the previous administration as well as the stench of corruption in some agencies.