Orealla Council cannot account for $40M – audit report

An audit conducted into the financial affairs of the Orealla Village Council has found that almost $40 million is unaccounted for.
The audit which was conducted by the Amerindian Affairs Ministry, found that the village’s Toshao had been almost singlehandedly running the affairs of the Council.
The audit was conducted for the period May 2018 to February 2021. According to the audit report, focus was placed on the economic activities, income, in accordance with the Amerindian Act which states that the Toshao is responsible for ensuring good governance, including accountability and transparency.
Region Six Chairman David Armogan on Wednesday said that the report is not encouraging as it revealed several irregularities.

“For example, one of the major things enshrined in the Act of the Toshao and the Amerindian Village Councils is that they must provide good governance, they must have regular meetings so that the community would know what is going on and they must be accountable and have all their financial records kept properly,” Armogan related.
However, the audit found that the cash book was not updated since January of 2020, and it showed major signs of manipulation, information recorded in the Council’s cash book lacked clarity, the cash book had errors of calculation, omission, data entry and errors of principals.
Over the period in review, the Council collected $97.1 million and spent $57 million but only had $290,160 as a balance.
According to the audit report, bank information was examined and according to the Treasurer and the details in the general cash book, withdrawals were taken into immediate use, that is, without passing through the Council’s cash books.
According to the audit, there is no accountability for the presidential grants of $1.5 million collected annually. It also revealed that the Council has been writing its own receipts when purchases were made.
The Regional Chairman noted that it is wrong for someone to write their receipt when they make a purchase for someone.
“That person should be writing the receipt and giving you for the money that you are paying. What they are doing is not in accordance with accounting principles,” Armogan said.
The audit also found that loans totalling $1,650,260, were issued to family members of the Council.
According to the Regional Chairman, there is no record of repayment or a repayment plan and it appears as though those persons were given grants.
“However, despite the Village Council continue to issue loans, the Toshao nor any of his Councillors could not satisfy the Ministry’s team with a loans register, a favourable system to manage loans or a method, to retrieve their outstanding loans, as a result, this also has become a liability under the existing Council,” the report said in part.
Worrying the Chairman also noted is that the report points out that during the period the Village Guest House was under construction, the Toshao’s Guest House was under similar works and all village assets that were procured for the Village Guest House were stored in the Toshao’s Guest House, which constituted a conflict of interest.
“On the day of the audit, we were informed by Toshao and Councillors that all projects are managed by the Toshao and Deputy in relation to purchases and actual works, and receipts were forward to the Treasurer. However, in a subsequent meeting at the Ministry with the Toshao he explained that all monies in relation to the presidential grant were depleted,” the audit report stated. (G4)