After receiving the final report of the audit into Sherod Duncan’s stewardship of the state-owned Guyana National News-papers Limited (GNNL), the Board of the entity will meet tomorrow to decide the next step.
“We received the report on March 18 and it was presented to the members of the board on March 19 for consideration and review. We will be meeting on Tuesday to make a decision on the way forward and once a decision has been taken we will issue a statement,” Board Chair, Geeta Chandan-Edmond told Stabroek News on Saturday.
While Edmond declined to comment on any of the findings detailed in the report, several sections of the media on Saturday received excerpts from a document purported to be the final report.
This document, like the draft report submitted to the Board of GNNL on January 23 and seen by this newspaper, notes that tender rules were flouted; services were acquired by the company without contracts; and payments were made on invoices with inadequate details, without passage through established approval process and on invoices that bear no mark of authentication such as business stamps or signature.
Additionally, cash advances given to Duncan for overseas and local travel are still to be cleared, as he has not provided the necessary documents to support expenditure; while the company’s personnel policy and procedures manual was ignored during the recruitment, termination and dismissal of several employees.
The “final report” recommends that necessary disciplinary action be taken against the officer(s) responsible for the breaches to the tender board rules and regulations as well as the non-compliance with the Human resource and Administrative policies and procedures.
The report was prepared by Auditing firm Chateram Ramdihal Chartered Accountants Professional Services Firm, on contract from the Office of the Auditor General to conduct a special audit into the overall management and governance of the GNNL for the period of June 1, 2018 to September 10, 2018.
Duncan was appointed General Manager in June and immediately began to aggressively upgrade the company’s social media presence, making several expenditures which the draft audit report noted were not part of the GNNL’s 2018 Budget. Costs associated with the Social Media Department alone totaled some $2,346,549, none of which was budgeted for.
“It is best practice that any deviation from the company’s approved plan is sought at the level of the Board of Directors or the subject Minister in the absence of a board before implementation. No approval was seen in this regard,” the draft report stated.
Additionally, Duncan travelled to New York and Lethem as part of different promotional campaigns, which cost the company $936,028.
The New York trip, which took place in the company of the marketing coordinator for the resuscitation of the publication’s New York edition, cost in excess of $736,028, but according to the report, “there was no approval from the Minister for such an event and to date, no relevant documents were brought forward to support these expenditures.”
Duncan, in responding to the report, argued that the re-launch of the New York Edition was approved by the subject Minister. He also argued that “any approvals that were needed at this level [that of the Board of Directors} were done by the Subject Minister.”
He noted that while overseas re-launching the New York Edition, “our team encountered challenges with establishments, such as the hotel where they were booked, accepting cash. Consequently, in the absence of a company credit card, the US Distributor and Focal Point Person undertook to pay for same and make other critical payments from his credit card in exchange for the cash they had on hand”.
