The Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary-Agricultural Development Authority (MMA-ADA) is owed $35 million in rent and may be unable to recover the sum due to poor management, a forensic audit into the entity has found.
The audit, done by TSD LAL & Co revealed that the Authority failed to update the files for tenants regularly with some instances being found where agreements were missing. In addition, many agreements that expired were not renewed.
“There were no pages in the rent ledger book related to several tenants. The ledger book was the Authority’s main method of recording rent receipts and rent outstanding from tenants,” the report said.
It pointed out that “this indicated a breakdown in relation to the rental of premises accounting and cast doubt over the receipts and receivables amounts in relation to rental of premises.”
The report revealed that $35 million was owed in rent.
Though an aged analysis was not done, upon investigation, it was determined that many of the amounts were owed for over one year.
It was concluded that this indicated that the Authority may not be able to recover some of this rent; doubt was also cast on the ability of the entity to collect moneys from tenants.
The auditors also recorded a “strong possibility that the Authority may be losing revenue because of under-valuations of rental property, minimal rent charges and not collecting fees in relation to drainage and irrigation services.”
Management of the Authority undertook to take corrective action and said that the Attorney-General has been written to and requested to take legal action against all defaulters except government agencies.
The MMA-ADA is a semi-autonomous agency under the Ministry of Agriculture. It is governed by a Board of Directors. The Board is responsible for the formulation of policies for the efficient functioning and operations of the Authority.
The Authority which was established in 1978 is tasked with promoting, facilitating and enhancing sustainable agricultural development in the Region through the efficient management of the land resource.
