On March 27 last year, a smiling President Donald Ramotar once again brushed off questions about why he had not done anything with regard to the results of an investigation that uncovered financial irregularities and implicated top officials at the state broadcaster NCN.
“I wasn’t prepared for that question at this point in time but I’ll probably look into it and see if I can give you an answer after…,” the President said while responding to a question from Stabroek News at a news conference at the Office of the President. He smiled as the question was being asked. “You have a memory like an elephant,” he said, then laughed and said he wasn’t prepared for the question.
With his term approaching an end 18 months early, Ramotar who is also the Minister of Information, has steadfastly, despite his many promises to do so, refused to reveal, what, if any action he would take in the matter which is one of several financial scandals that have tarnished his administration.
The June 2012 investigation by Parmesar Chartered Accountants revealed that former NCN Programme Manager Martin Goolsarran had money from GT&T meant to pay NCN staff transferred to one of his bank accounts. Goolsarran and NCN’s then Chief Exe-cutive Officer Mohammed `Fuzzy’ Sattaur were accused of attempting to cover up financial irregularities by pressuring staff to prepare backdated invoices. Sattaur was allowed to resign and Goolsarran subsequently parted ways with the company.
Critics have said that the reason why there has been no action is that the two persons at the centre of the probe have close ties to the ruling party. Analysts saw the case as a litmus test of whether the government was serious about accountability and financial probity in the state sector. Both Goolsarran and Sattaur had declined repeated requests by Stabroek News for responses to the allegations contained in the report.
Ramotar was asked about the matter on several occasions over the course of the past two years. He has made several promises to reveal what, if any, action he was going to take in relation to the findings of the probe but thus far has failed to do so. In September 2012, he said that a wider investigation into the financial irregularities uncovered at NCN was not a top priority and he had not looked closely into the matter as he was distracted by many other things.
Planned
In January 2013, Ramotar told a news conference that he planned to discuss the findings of an audit into alleged financial improprieties at NCN with the persons involved before saying what decisions will be made. In April 2013, he had said that he would make his decision known “very soon.”
“I wasn’t prepared for that question at this point in time but I’ll probably look into it and see if I can give you an answer after…,” the President said in March last year.
On June 7 last year, he had no answer when asked about the issue at a news conference. “I have nothing new to report on that. I really was preoccupied with many other things at this point in time. I’m sorry, next time hopefully I’ll be in a better position,” the president said while responding to a question from Stabroek News during the news conference at State House.
Later in June, Ramotar acknowledged that he has taken a long time to reveal whether he took any action against officials implicated in the financial irregularities NCN and said that a lot of the issues “in a way” have been resolved. He had spoken at length about his administration’s efforts to fight corruption and when it was pointed out that it has been two years since NCN officials who have close ties to the PPP were implicated in the financial scandal at the state broadcaster, the President agreed that it had been a long time.
However, he said, “a lot of the issues in a way has been resolved, the CEO is not there…they have not been there but we’ll get to that I promise you.”
Tune
In July last year, the president changed his tune and said that NCN’s Board would deal with the matter. However, since 2012 the Board had said it was awaiting his pronouncement on it. He added that an announcement on some of the issues will be made later.
In December 2012, the then chairman of the NCN Board of Directors Prem Misir had told Stabroek News that the closure report on the financial irregularities at the state-owned broadcaster was with Ramotar, who was yet to offer his advice.
Meantime, last April, Head of the Presiden- tial Secretariat Roger Luncheon said government has concerns about the recommendations made by the auditor who uncovered the financial irregularities at NCN. “I think the review of what the auditor submitted as recommendations… and his specific Terms of Reference [ToR] continue to be a source of some concern by the administration… I for one feel that he overstepped his bounds, went beyond his ToR in the recommendations that had been made and more than likely that has stultified any action on those recommendations,” Luncheon had told a news briefing.
“I would want to believe that the matter would have died, but it obviously has not died and actually I suspect that there may well be some imminent interventions, revelations that would bring this matter again to the fore,” he had said. There has been no further word on this.
Harry Parmesar, the auditor who uncovered the financial irregularities at NCN subsequently told Stabroek News that he was never contacted about any concerns that the government might have had about his findings.
Key findings of the audit surround an incentive payment to NCN by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph company. At the time, board members were examining a proposal by the management of the company on the way forward in the light of the cut of its subvention by the opposition. The board decided to dig deeper on seeing the proposal, since NCN had publicly indicated that most of its revenues come from advertising and that it raked in over $500 million in advertising revenue in 2011. Parmesar Chartered Accountants was then hired to carry out a special investigation into the alleged financial irregularities and several breaches were uncovered.
The Parmesar report said that Goolsarran, in the presence of Sattaur, in June 2012, requested that the finance manager prepare an invoice to be dated January 2012 to cover production costs for the GT&T Jingle and Song competition for the period November 2011 to January 2012. The amount of the invoice was for $3.6 million but the employee refused to prepare the invoice “as no Job Order was given to her for these activities.” The employee told the investigators that Sattaur and Goolsarran made “a few requests” to her to prepare the invoice.
After the finance manager refused, the report said, Sattaur and Goolsarran instructed another employee to prepare a Job Order for the GT&T competition production services and forward it to the Finance Department for the preparation of an invoice. This employee also refused to carry out the instruction.
The report also said that Goolsarran admitted that on two occasions he received amounts totalling $3,930,000 in December 2011 from GT&T for production services. “These amounts were deposited in his personal bank account. He claimed that the $3,930,000 was paid to HJTV on two occasions for their services,” the report said.
Among other things, the report said that a number of functions of other staff/ departments were usurped by Sattaur and Goolsarran. It said that that the two officers entered into arrangements with GT&T for the Jingle and Song Competition without a written agreement and further, this event was not referred to the ‘Rates and Special Events Committee,’ which has responsibility for such events. The two officials also executed a subcontract with HJTV without a written agreement.
