NEDCO’s missing $17.4M referred to Auditor General

Charges of missing monies in the sum of $17.4 million from the National Entrepreneurship Development Company Limited (NEDCO) have been referred by the Director of Public Prosecutions Geoffery Henderson, to the Auditor General for review. This was stated by the DPP in a letter he had written to the MP for Oropouche Dr Roodal Moonilal who had first raised the issue in Parliament a few weeks ago. In Parliament, Moonilal had said that several thousand dollars were reported missing from the NEDCO programme and had later written to the DPP expressing his concerns. The NEDCO programme was launched on August 1, 2002, at the Brian Lara Promenade. Dr Moonilal said in Parliament that he was told by the Minister of Labour and Small and Micro Enterprise Development, Larry Achong, that the launch cost was $112,756.50. “We were asking all the time that the Minister tell us the names of the recipients of these loans, we wanted to know who these people were,” he said.

Dr Moonilal charged that NEDCO would have been like another Community-based Environment Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP), in which the NEDCO loans would be contracted out to party activists, supporters and relatives of the ruling PNM government. “We heard from the Minister that as of October 31, 2002, the sum of $17.4 million was disbursed in loans. Now, something sounds a bit fishy there. If the programme was launched on August 1, 2002 and as of October 31, 2002, $17.4 million was distributed, something must be wrong.” Moonilal also said at the time that NEDCO had anticipated losses in the years 2003 to 2004 and 2005 to 2006. “Hear the magnitude of those losses — $28 million to be lost in 2003/2004; 2004/2005, $25 million; 2005/2006, $21 million; a whopping $75 million estimated to be lost by NEDCO over that three-year period,” he said. Dr Moonilal then wrote to the DPP about his concerns and the DPP subsequently replied that he had forwarded the matter to the Auditor General for review. In his letter to Moonilal, Henderson said: “I have noted that you have not identified any specific instances where there may have been infractions of the criminal law.

The evidential threshold has not been crossed at this stage to trigger a police investigation. However, the issues that you have raised may or may not involve breaches of prudent lending policies and criteria. On the other hand it may involve something more.” He said at this stage and in his view, matters such as those are best investigated by agencies which are both authorised and technically equipped to examine the loan transactions. “In this case, the agency best able to review your concerns is the constitutionally independent office of the Auditor General. Therefore, I have referred this matter to the Auditor General for review,” he said.