Deliberate efforts made to understate Hope Canal costs – audit

Deliberate efforts were made to understate the cost of the Hope Canal Project for which the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) spent more than $257M though it was substantively funded from the PetroCaribe Fund.

This is according to a Forensic Audit of the NDIA conducted by Nigel Hinds Financial Services. The audit which was made public on the Ministry of Finance’s Website yesterday noted that based on the information provided thus far, the  Cost of the Hope Canal Project amounts to $4,119,294,616, this is significantly more than the $3.4B previously reported.

The auditors however stated that the actual cost of the project was not computed as they were unable to obtain all the documentation to compute the actual cost of the Project “as it would appear that deliberate efforts were made to understate the actual cost.”