Singh refers to Auditor General’s report

Seebalack Singh, the former CEO of the Agricultural Development Bank, (ADB) who was fired by the Board for negligence, accepted yesterday that prior to  his dismissal, he did not say the Clico investment was illegal and ultra vires in any correspondence between himself and the Board. He insisted that while he did not use those words, he had expressed strong reservations about the investment to the Board. Singh, who is seeking judicial review against his dismissal, was being cross-examined for the second day by the bank’s attorneys, Elton Prescott and Phillip Lamont, before Justice Amrika Tiwary-Reddy in the Port-of-Spain Third Civil Court.

Singh was dismissed because he failed to carry out the Board’s instruction to invest $4.5 million in a Clico life insurance fund, misrepresented the Board’s instruction when he sought a legal opinion by letter dated October 23, 2002, and distributed private and confidential banking information, which seriously compromised the bank (when he sought legal opinion.) Among his concerns was a report from the Auditor General about a previous and similar investment by the bank with Clico. However, that concern was not expressed in the Auditor General’s report on that account to Parliament. Evidence under cross-examination revealed that the Auditor General, in reports to Parliament on statutory corporations such as the ADB, could place what is known as a “qualification” on the financial report of any corporation. A “qualification” is a certificate by the Auditor General that there are reservations on the particular account. Such a qualification is a blot on the faithfulness of the account, Singh said.

Prescott, in his cross-examination, also adduced evidence that the Auditor General could make queries and criticisms in a report addressed to a particular accounting body of a corporation such as the ADB, in order to avoid a “qualification” when the Auditor General’s accounting report is submitted to Parliament. Singh agreed that it would have been open to the bank to address these objections and criticisms and to remove them, and had the bank done so, the Auditor General would be free to issue a certificate without a qualification. Singh said he had viewed the Auditor General’s report as a qualification. The report being referred to was dated July 12, 2001, and sent to the bank’s CEO. It was headed: Audit of the Accounts and Financial Statements of the Agricultural Development Bank for the year ended December 31, 2000.

Under the heading “Long Term Investment,” the report stated: “Proper documentary evidence of certain long-term investments was not produced to enable the verification of whether the bank would be the beneficiary of a financial asset in the future.” The report then noted the bank’s  investments listed with Clico. When hearing resumes today, Singh’s attorney Anand Ramlogan, instructed by Narendra Beharry and assisted by British attorney Jodie Blackstock, will cross-examine the bank’s former chairman, Hubert Alleyne. Dr Fenton Ramsahoye SC, who is lead counsel for Singh, is out of the jurisdiction.