Is Goolsarran a forensic auditor?
December 20, 2015 By
Dear Editor,
The NICIL preliminary audit report is now available on the web. I see Mr Brassington took the 85 page report and responded with 211 pages. He responded to every paragraph. At the end of the report, Mr Brassington shows all of the questionnaires produced by Mr Goolsarran and NICIL’s answers.
It is clear to me that Mr Goolsarran is biased. I would even say that this is not a forensic audit; this is a witch-hunt. And this was the same man that audited NICIL before. And why did he go back all the way to 2002, two years after he finished his audit?
Here are a couple of reasons why Goolsarran is not professional. Brassington should write the accounting body and the ACCA because this type of report attacking people is nasty. He attack Luncheon, Ashni Singh, and Brassington plus the whole Cabinet.
First the report is not written as an audit report. I am a layperson. So I wanted to see where Mr Goolsarran got his information. So he had some questionnaires and lots of answers from Brassington. But what did he do with it? I don’t see this covered in his report. Paragraph by paragraph, Goolsarran makes statements but I keep wondering, where is this information coming from? In a few cases, he refers to the minutes of the Board but I don’t see him referring to the answers from Brassington. The report is just a long narrative.
Second, I wanted to see if Mr Goolsarran had any evidence of anything illegal. I know Goolsarran is not a lawyer. I see a few references but I can’t find any legal references for Goolsarran to show that the law is broken. It looks like all opinion. Some weeks ago, Mr Brassington issued a press release. I read the release and realise that nothing in Goolsarran report contradicts Brassington
Third, Brassington keep referring to the accounts already being audited and a clean audit opinion. So I was hoping to see that he interviewed the Auditor General Sharma. Also that he would show what was in the audited financials and how it was wrong. But again, nothing. So we have two auditors—one say the accounts are fine but Goolsarran fine-tooth comb everything, write a long report but has no proof.
Finally, I wanted to see if this was a fair report. After all, this is an auditor. But the thing read like a Kaieteur News article. In fact, the report must be written from Kaieteur Newsroom. Because he take all of the articles Kaieteur attacking Brassington on and write the report. Like the High Street property is scrapped—but where is the evidence? I see they had architects and structural engineers like Gaskin but Goolsarran ignore this. The secret bank account—I didn’t see any evidence. Where is the proof of things being illegal—you mean everybody who do business or buy a property from NICIL doing illegal business? Everybody has lawyers. Are we to believe Goolsarran is right and everybody else is wrong?
I look at Brassington response and this man is professional. I hope someone investigates Goolsarran and how the audit report end up in Kaieteur News and Stabroek News. Can someone say which forensic report Goolsarran did before because this report definitely is not a forensic report.
And he got handpicked and paid $7 million so far. The Government should release his contract and his terms of reference.
Michael Fredrick
