The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

NIB Minister Shane Gibson yesterday denied widespread reports that the recently handed over audit results into the Board’s operations have been leaked.

In fact, the Minister told The Tribune that certain alleged details which were released to the public through a tabloid website were “made up”.

Mr Gibson’s emphatic denial came after this newspaper contacted him on whether circulating reports were correct of the audit report compiled by government contracted Grant Thornton Bahamas. The reports, the result of a lengthy forensic audit, were one week ago handed over to the government after being delayed since January 1.

“From what I know,” he said, “whomever claims to have seen the report must not have seen it because the information they say they know and that they say is correct is not in the report. It’s made up. I understand there is some information on the site about a homosexual relationship taking place with executives. None of that is in the report.

“Only a select few have seen the report so the supposed leaked information...they created it.

“The report is at the Attorney General’s office and as soon as they have made their review everyone will know.”

On Tuesday, Mr Gibson claimed that the forensic reports were shocking and that the findings were far worse than he imagined.

“As far as I am concerned it is shocking and even worse than I thought it would be,” Mr Gibson said.

Just two days before, Paul Andy Gomez, Grant Thornton and Mr Gibson were tight-lipped of their findings into NIB’s inner-workings and investigations of documents dating back to 2003.

While Mr Gibson at the time claimed that he had not seen the reports, Mr Gomez urged the government to make the Board’s regulations more modern. They also charged that operations at NIB would run smoothly if the internal auditor had a clear definition of who they should answer to.

When asked for specifics of the report, including other recommendations that were made, which areas of NIB were scrutinised, when the public would be made aware of the report’s findings, or how many taxpayers dollars would be required to cover the expenses of the lengthy audit, the Minister was not able to say.

Neither could he tell reporters if Mr Cargill would be reinstated if the report did not contain incriminating evidence.

Mr Gomez said: “Now when the Act or the board was established, that might have been okay, but these are some interesting times now, these are different times. So the Act needs to be updated.”

The probe into NIB began when suspended NIB Director Algernon Cargill and axed Board chairman Gregory Moss fielded serious allegations against each other last year.