Forensic audit reveals…Go-Invest was a personal piggy bank for Keith Burrowes
Former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Guyana Office for Investment, Keith Burrowes always had a plaster for every sore criticism of mismanagement, especially when it came from the press. However, a forensic audit recently showed that Burrowes was just as harmful to the company as to those he often accused.
Not only did he abuse his authority and treated the company like his private business but Burrowes acted as though Go-Invest was his personal piggy bank. According to the audit report which was released by the Ministry of Finance on Friday, the former CEO took personal loans amounting to over $3M without approval from the Board. The auditors noted however that those monies were returned February last year. The forensic auditors also stressed that the former CEO was not entitled to an entertainment allowance or salary advance(s) from Go-Invest since his salary was funded from Guyana National Cooperative Bank/Guyana Cooperative Financial Services. Be that as it may, Mr. Burrowes still went ahead and authorized and received an entertainment allowance for himself totalling $480,000, without the approval of the Board of Directors. Compounding the issue of misuse of authority was the fact that Burrowes instructed that his personal driver, Mr. Nigel Gordon, be paid a sum of $232,365 for carrying out duties as a driver. This is in spite of the fact that this ‘personal driver’ was not a Go-Invest employee. The forensic auditors found that this instruction was given by a Memorandum dated December 22, 2014 and executed the following day. It was also discovered that there was no clear policy at Go Invest for remuneration of employees. Burrowes dealt with this process in a ‘discretionary’ manner. Furthermore, Burrowes made it seem as though his Human Resources Officer was redundant. In this regard, forensic auditors found that the hiring function was conducted in an ad hoc manner thus allowing the former CEO to solely make hiring decisions.
In fact, Burrowes sourced applicants, invited and conducted interviews for new people hired by him, instead of utilizing the Administrative Department. The interview committee comprising the CEO, Accountant/ Personnel Officer and a Senior Investment Officer was rarely utilized. He also re-designated employees and fixed new allowances for them. The Accountant/ Human Resources fficer/ Administrative Officer had little or no input in the recruitment and selection process.
(kaieteurnewsonline.com)