Each statement
cost the Board a tidy $3,800 plus vat and agency charges to advertise
the facts as outlined by the Board.
NLCB said the investigation cost (TT) $1.2 million.
This investigation, it said, is “into what appears to be impropriety
by former officers of the NLCB”.
And the (US)$75 million (or TT$474.7) quoted by Mark actually represents
“50 per cent of the gross annual revenue of the NLCB”.
Having noted that, Board members Louis Lee Sing (chairman), Cherryl
Guide, Lindsay Parmashwar and Carl Groome signed the document and
fired at the Senator: “The Board of Directors demands that
Senator Wade Mark cease and desist from misleading the people of
Trinidad and Tobago.”
They went into far more detail in the second statement dealing with
the audited accounts, outlining six main facts.
The first is that the Board took office in February 2002 “and
immediately sought to correct this failing on the part of the colleagues
of Senator Wade Mark”.
Secondly, the Board “made numerous attempts” to ensure
the accounts were audited and processed by the Auditor General.
They stated further that following much communication among the
NLCB, the line minister and Auditor General, “authority was
given to the NLCB to employ the services of an external auditor
to ensure the Board met its fiduciary responsibilities”.
The Board made it clear they were aware that “the NLCB, given
its Act, cannot employ external auditors without authorisation”.
The directors said they employed Pannell Kerr Foster and, thus,
the accounts for 2001 to 2003 were audited and submitted to the
Auditor General this year.
“The NLCB does not have the authority to process and present
audited statements to the Parliament,” they said, hinting
that their responsibility in this event was with the Auditor General.
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