The Tribune

FOLLOWING Ernst & Young’s (EY) revelations regarding irregularities in procurement decisions at Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) under the former Christie administration, Works Minister Desmond Bannister said yesterday new policies are now in place, which will be “scrupulously followed”.

While he did not outline what these new policies were, Mr Bannister, who has the electricity provider in his portfolio, said there is now a refreshing new culture of transparency and accountability at BPL.

“I conclude first by advising that new procurement policies are now in place in BPL,” the minister said during the morning session of Parliament yesterday. “They were desperately needed and will be scrupulously followed.

“Finally, there is a refreshing new culture of transparency and accountability at BPL. We intend to ensure that BPL remains a special place to work and we look forward to employees enthusiastically buying into the new culture and supporting the new management initiatives.”

His comments came the day The Tribune exclusively revealed contents of EY’s audit into BPL, which highlighted instances where former Executive Chairman Leslie Miller allegedly “influenced procurement decisions” for the awarding of contracts “or circumvented the process entirely.”

According to a copy of the audit obtained by this newspaper ahead of its tabling in the House of Assembly yesterday, EY found alleged actions taken by Mr Miller regarding the issuance of contracts worth less than $100,000 – below the limit of board/chairman involvement – at the government entity were “highly irregular”.

The audit further found numerous other irregularities, including pay outs to some companies that were not registered with the Corporate Business Registry and more than $3m in payouts to vendors with tax identification number (TIN) anomalies.

The auditors, in some cases, found a “lack of supporting documentation for payments remitted to vendors,” invoice dates months apart although they are sequential, “vendor invoices containing an invalid or no tax identification number,” “inconsistencies across vendor invoices,” and “no evidence of existence of vendors at the Bahamian Corporate Business Registry,” among other issues.

The revelations, gleaned as part of a probe into an alleged fraud scheme at BPL, paints a picture of a company riddled with internal control issues.

EY said it performed analytical procedures on BPL’s vendor payment transactions and selected a sample of about 345 disbursements totaling an approximate $14,524,321 for review of supporting documentation.

During this review, EY found the following irregularities: 40 cheques lacking supporting documentation valued $974,868; 32 vendors with value added tax TIN anomalies valued at $3.2m; and five instances where there was no evidence of vendor as a registered company with payouts valued $422,082.

EY further found three instances of inconsistencies across vendor invoices valued at $101,963; three instances of a time lag between date of invoice and date of payment valued at $90,144; two instances of purchase order dates subsequent to invoice issuance date valued at $24,806 and one instance of an internal memo prepared on the same date despite invoices being received on various days for a value of $20,500.