Dear Editor,
In the last few days, SN has carried what is purported to be the final NICIL Forensic Report issued by Mr Anand Goolsarran, the appointed Forensic Auditor (FA) of NICIL. Given the one-sided nature of the report, based on your newspaper articles, I wanted to make a few observations.
At the start of the audits, the FA made it clear that a draft report would be submitted to us and to the Government of Guyana for comment. The only report that I am in receipt of, is a preliminary report totalling 85 pages submitted to us at the end of September. We provided an interim response on October 20 in the form of a 211 page response, where we responded paragraph by paragraph. Since that time, we have not received any feedback from the FA, much less a draft report. (Related emails during August from Mr Goolsarran are enclosed).
I should also point out that when KN carried headlines on the NICIL audit on Sunday, October 18 of statements purportedly made by Minister Jaipaul Sharma, we consulted with our NICIL Board and issued a press release on Monday October 19. I also checked with Mr Goolsarran who stated that the preliminary report had only been submitted to the CEO and Chairman of NICIL and not to government. (Email from Mr Goolsarran dated October 19 enclosed.)
Suffice to say, the manner in which the audit process and communication has been conducted, is quite divergent from the manner in which a professional, objective, balanced, independent forensic audit would be completed. Without the benefit of sight of the final report, I can only conclude that Mr Goolsarran has chosen to ignore our comments on his preliminary report and issued his preliminary report as final.
Yours faithfully,
Winston Brassington
CEO
NICIL
