The People’s Progressive Party/Civic, Kashif and Shanghai and Hits and Jams Entertainment, are among the top 20 companies that still owe the state owned National Communications Network (NCN) Inc. a recently released audit report has revealed.
The report, which can be obtained from the Ministry of Finance’s official website said the PPP/C has a balance of over nine million dollars for the entity and the party’s media centre owes over six million dollars.
In addition to this, the balance of over 17 million dollars owed by Impressions, the report revealed, represents campaign ads placed for the PPP for the 2011 Regional and General Elections.
The report pointed out that there is no evidence that the Company made efforts to recover this debt. It noted instead that The Finance Manager advised that letters were sent by the Debt Recovery Department on November 10, 2011, December 13, 2011 and November 29, 2013, however actual copies of these letters were not available for the auditors to exam.
Also, there is no evidence that legal action was initiated to recover this debt from the customer.
Chief Executive Officer, Molly Hassan on April 16, 2015 wrote a memo to the Board of
Directors to have the amount written off as uncollectable as per section 6 of the Limitation Act,
Chapter 7:02, laws of Guyana. Once again, there is no evidence that the CEO sought legal advice from the Company’s lawyer, Ms. Jaya Manickchand.
“It should be noted that NCN usually make payments for services provided by Impressions. No
effort was made to off- set payment for such services against amounts due from Impressions,” it stated.
NCN also incurred legal fees to recover debts through the Courts. In two instances (Hits & Jams Entertainment – $7,913,193 and Kashif & Shanghai – $2,046,703) which the court ruled in favour of NCN, however, the Board of Directors at a meeting held on March 10, 2015, according to the report, decided not to enforce the judgment and failed to recover the debt.
For these two matters, the state entity incurred legal fees in excess of 1.2 million dollars. The report stated further that there is inadequate evidence to confirm that significant efforts were made to collect the outstanding debts.
Below is the table of the top 20 companies with outstanding debts as listed by the report.
| Name | 31.12.2011 | 31.12.2012 | 31.12.2013 | 31.12.2014 | 31.05.2015 |
| G$ | G$ | G$ | G$ | G$ | |
| Impressions | 17,317,686 | 17,317,686 | 17,317,686 | 17,525,326 | 17,525,326 |
| Ministry of Health | 8,495,996 | 9,125,527 | 10,885,207 | 12,805,935 | 11,795,765 |
| Peoples Progressive Party / Civic | (26,100) | (26,100) | (26,100) | – | 9,523,248 |
| Modern Media Advertising Agency | 8,311,815 | 19,586,189 | 9,934,963 | 6,477,020 | 8,850,943 |
| U Mobile Cellular Inc | 4,965,505 | 6,231,259 | 4,652,390 | 7,812,363 | 8,153,973 |
| Hits & Jams Entertainment | 3,809,644 | 7,913,193 | 7,913,193 | 7,913,193 | 7,913,193 |
| Media Centre (PPP/C) | 6,344,300 | 6,344,300 | 6,344,300 | 7,400,260 | 6,344,300 |
| Beepat’s | 4,020,508 | 4,350,829 | 5,478,465 | 4,149.913 | 5,259,864 |
| Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company | 16,502,850 | 358,458 | 8,787,478 | 1,296,140 | 4,004,222 |
| Brutal Tracks Recording Studio | 1,992,239 | 3,294,407 | 3,378,579 | 3,378,579 | 3,378,579 |
| King Advertising Limited | 7,812,536 | 10,029,392 | 7,189,147 | 4,531,346 | 3,054,656 |
| Merundoi Inc. | 809,114 | 1,150,086 | 1,952,006 | 2,713,343 | 2,713,342 |
| Ministry of Tourism, Industry & Commerce | 1,811,579 | 1,102,943 | 2,040,935 | 2,024,895 | 2,220,123 |
| Guyana Water Inc. | 1,618,350 | 2,113,152 | 1,723,302 | 2,698,279 | 2,117,555 |
| Kashif & Shanghai | 1,497,907 | 2,046,703 | 2,046,703 | 2,046,703 | 2,046,703 |
| The Guyana Learning Channel | – | (269,723) | 1,121,539 | – | 1,769,635 |
| Wireless Connection | 4,196,760 | 4,242,693 | 1,745,412 | 1,745,412 | 1,745,412 |
| Caribbean Fire Fest Production | 25,828 | 1,650,222 | 1,650,222 | 1,650,222 | 1,650,222 |
| Ministry of Health – Chronic Diseases | 3,500,416 | 3,953,512 | 3,953,512 | 1,330,984 | 1,330,984 |
| Guyana Oil Company | 1,717,601 | 1,591,625 | 1,295,593 | 1,560,305 | 1,261,953 |
The audit also revealed that a total of 35 media monitors were employed by NCN during the period 2011 to May 2015. During the period 2011 to May 2015 NCN expended close to 29 million dollars on media monitors.
While these employees were contracted by NCN, they were not located at NCN neither did they perform any duties for NCN or report to any official at NCN, instead these individuals reported directly to former Press and Publicity Officer, Kwame Mc Coy at the Office of the President.
The report said Mc Coy would write to the NCN human resource manager when changes were required and on a monthly basis all employees were required to submit an invoice for payment to NCN. The media monitors were required to uplift payments from the NCN’s head office.
The report also noted that General Secretary of the PPP, Clement Rohee’s daughter, Renata Rohee was a media monitor.
