– Congress approves financial report

WAYNE Forde, president of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), assured his affiliates and stakeholders of the game of football, that the Federation’s finances are in good hands, despite receiving a ‘Qualified Opinion’ on their Audited Financial Statements for the year ending December 31, 2016, which was done by Ram and McRae, Chartered Accountants, Professional Services Firm.

According to Ram and McRae, one of the country’s leading Chartered Accounting firms, the GFF did not maintain adequate documentation of transactions with suppliers and consequently, Ram and McRae were unable to determine the accuracy, validity and completeness of accounts payable and accruals slated at $89,881,316 in the financial statements. Of this amount, a total of 48,320,142 was supported by third party confirmations and other audit evidence.

Additionally, the report stated, adequate documentation for expenses paid during the year under review, totalling $2,319,499 was not provided during our test of controls.
According to the findings of the Financial Audits, the GFF did not maintain adequate documentation in respect of game and other income stated at $21,051,698 in the financial statements, of which a total of $16,834,029 was supported by receipts and other audit evidence.

Eighteen affiliated members of the GFF participated in yesterday’s Extraordinary Congress, where 17 voted to approve the 2016 Audited Statements.
Forde said that his executive committee campaigned on bringing integrity to the game, and they’ve not strayed from that mantra.

Chronicle Sport, in an article published on December 14, spoke about the over $45M unaccounted debts and income claims, according to Ram and McRae’s Audits. However, Forde called the article misleading, adding that since the publication, several concerned stakeholders reached out for an explanation.

Forde said the article painted a picture that his administration was careless with the trusted finances, and that monies were missing, when in fact, that was not the case.
The GFF president assured the public that under his watch and that of his executive committee, transparency will forever be the order of the day, with their only purpose in office being to see the development of the game on all fronts in the most professional manner, all done in accordance with FIFA’s rules.  A qualified opinion is a statement issued after an audit is done by a professional auditor that suggests the information provided was limited in scope and/or the company being audited has not maintained generally accepted accounting principles.

Auditors who deem audits as qualified opinions are advising whoever is reading the document that the information within the audit is not complete or the accounting methods used by the company do not follow generally accepted accounting principles.
A qualified opinion is typically given due to a limitation of scope in which the auditor was not able to gather sufficient evidence for various aspects of the financial statements.

Without sufficient verification of transactions, an unqualified opinion may not be given.
A qualified opinion is suitable when accounting procedures used do not conform to generally accepted accounting principles. Inadequate disclosures in the notes to the financial statements, estimation uncertainty or the lack of a statement of cash flows are also grounds for a qualified opinion.