– management says GINA debt of $74M down to $24M

THE Guyana National Newspaper Limited (GNNL) has made significant progress in its quest to recover outstanding revenues.A Forensic Audit Report into the operations of GNNL, which publishes the Chronicle newspapers, revealed that GNNL’s 10 top customers had owed approximately $88.9M at the end of May 31, 2015. More than a year after, the newspaper company has received more than 60 per cent of the outstanding revenues.

Though the audit report was completed late last year, it was only made public last week Friday by the Ministry of Finance.

In that report, the Government Information Agency (GINA), the National Communications Network (NCN), Video Mega, Police Consumer, Kirk Wynter, Kings Advertising, Reamos, Guyenterprise Advertising Agency Limited and Colin Edghill were identified as the company’s top 10 customers with outstanding revenues as of May 31, 2015.

However in an attempt to clear the air, GNNL’s Management has indicated that all of the identified customers with the exception of GINA and Video Mega have cleared the sums identified in the audit report since last year.

While Video Mega is repaying its debt of $3.073M at snail’s pace, GINA has made significant effort at repaying the newspaper company. As of May 31, 2015 the Government Information Agency had a balance of $24.18M from a high of $74.091M at the ending of May, 2015.

The auditors in the report had also pointed out that gas bills reviewed for the period November 1, 2011 to May 31, 2015 had revealed that gas was supplied to several vehicles that were not owned by GNNL.

In response to this observation, GNNL’s Management explained that due to the lack of finance at that time, the company was loaned vehicles from the Office of the President and in some cases vehicles were rented by the company to execute its duties.

However, all of the borrowed or rented vehicles have been returned. The company has since purchased two additional vehicles.

The auditors had also observed that the audit of financial statements were not up to date. The last audit completed was for the year that ended December 31, 2013. As such, the auditors have recommended that an Internal Audit Department be established and managed by a Chartered Accountant.

However, GNNL’s Management explained that where the company does not have an internal audit department, its financial statements are sent to the Auditor General (AG) on a yearly basis to be audited.
The reports, however, take months or even years to be completed. The 2014 Audit Report was only completed in February 2016. With the audit report now in hand, the company has set June 29, 2016 for the staging of its Annual General Meeting (AGM) for 2014.