Creative accounting?

Dear Editor,

With respect to a news item on the Amaila forum in Stabroek News of July 31, Capt Gerry Gouveia was reported as saying that it was unrealistic and unjust to include the cumulative cost of the financing for Amaila over the duration of the project and to refer to the total cost as the cost of the project. He was reported as going on to say that if someone buys a vehicle through the commercial banking system, one does not consider the entire sum that will be paid over the period of the life of the loan as the cost of the vehicle.

Well, I do not know how the accountants for Capt Gouveia’s business in Guyana account for capital purchases, but I know of  no accountant who would treat capital expenditure cost as solely the amount paid for the article and then write off all subsidiary costs as not a cost of the purchase. So where does the interest on the Amaila development go? Creative accounting! Do we just pretend that it does not have to be paid as it is not a cost?

There are lots of other questionable statements on what he describes as “transformational projects” but in the interest of keeping this brief and to the point, I will not comment further.

Yours faithfully,
Peter Douglas