IEXPORTT may have made substantial progress in raising the standards of local businesses for export, but the absence of an auditor and audited financial statements will undermine its good reputation, Wade Mark, chairman of the Public Accounts (Enterprises) Committee, told the public organisation on Wednesday.
ExporTT directors, together with officials at the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Trade and Industry, were questioned by the committee, which scrutinised ExporTT’s audited accounts for the 2018 financial year – the last time the organisation submitted its audited financial statements to the Ministry of Finance.
Mark probed ExporTT’s lack of an auditor and its failure to produce financial statements past 2018.
“ExporTT will disappear and yet we don’t have these audited financial statements,” Mark charged, referring to the impending merger of ExporTT, Creative TT and InvesTT, three agencies under the Ministry of Trade.
[caption id="attachment_1065323" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Public Accounts (Enterprises) Committee chairman, Wade Mark. - OTP[/caption]
ExporTT general manager, Maria Padilla-Benjamin, was asked to account for outstanding audited financials post-2018.
She said ExporTT had in fact completed financials up to 2020, which she said would be presented at the annual general meeting (for 2020), scheduled for the following day (Thursday).
Padilla-Benjamin added that 2021 statements have already been submitted to the auditor general.
Mark, noting the four-month deadline for agencies to submit their statements after September 30 to the Ministry of Finance, probed ExporTT to explain why it frequently missed its deadlines.
Padilla-Benjamin replied, “We did have an auditor, who we had some issues with. We supplied information, but the audits were not completed.”
Because of these issues, she said the organisation was required to reapproach the finance ministry for the approval of new internal auditors, causing extensive delays.
She said there have been issues with the recruitment of personnel, owing to a lack of job security and comparatively low salaries offered at the organisation.
Randall Karim, permanent secretary of the Trade Ministry said coming out of the committee meeting, measures will be immediately explored to fill the voids.
[caption id="attachment_1065322" align="alignnone" width="683"] Trade and Industries Ministry acting permanent secretary Randall Karim -[/caption]
Mark also asked for the status of the TT Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (TIPA), the new agency responsible for the development of trade for domestic and export markets, effectively replacing ExporTT, Creative TT and InvesTT.
Karim said amalgamation has proven a much more intricate legal process to achieve. He said industrial relations issues were among the major hurdles.
He added, however, that the trade ministry has completed consultations for the design and business structure of the new organisation. He said the amalgamated agency should be up and running by April.
He said the purp
