{"id":37048,"date":"2013-07-02T07:47:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-02T11:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=37048"},"modified":"2013-07-02T07:47:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T11:47:38","slug":"new-audit-into-nib","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/07\/new-audit-into-nib","title":{"rendered":"New Audit Into NIB"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Months after the government spent almost $900,000 on a forensic investigation into allegations against two senior officials at the National Insurance Board (NIB), Minister of Labour and National Insurance Shane Gibson said the government is conducting another audit into NIB.<\/p>\n

Gibson would not reveal any details surrounding the audit however. \u201cAs soon as we are ready we will release it to you,\u201d Gibson told The Nassau Guardian yesterday.<\/p>\n

Free National Movement (FNM) Chairman Darron Cash yesterday accused the Christie administration of trying to \u201csmear anything that was done under the Ingraham administration\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gibson revealed plans for the audit in the House of Assembly last week as he criticized the FNM for claiming that the government was abusing NIB funds.
\n\u201cI believe that the last people in this world to be talking about the abuse of National Insurance funds should be the side opposite,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd all isn\u2019t out yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing another audit of some other stuff that\u2019s going on. \u201cWait until you see the results into that. Then you\u2019ll really see what is happening over there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis (the NIB issue) is one of the babies of the leader of the opposition. When we\u2019re finished with that, Mr. Speaker, we will have some more to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

An independent forensic investigation into allegations against fired NIB Director Algernon Cargill and fired Chairman Gregory Moss was presented to Parliament in early May.<\/p>\n

Grant Thornton (Bahamas) was engaged by the government on November 30 and handed in its
\nreports on March 24.<\/p>\n

The government ordered the audit after Moss wrote a lengthy letter to Gibson last November, advising that the board had voted to fire Cargill and outlining a series of damning allegations against him.<\/p>\n

The forensic investigation found that bonuses appear to have been improperly paid to Cargill and other executives, and also highlighted reported irregularities in the award of certain NIB contracts for various projects.<\/p>\n

The investigation found no negative conclusions into allegations made against Moss by Cargill.<\/p>\n

Gibson said the government spent $861,606 on that investigation.<\/p>\n

Cash said when it comes to NIB, fiscal stewardship \u201cwill not be one of things that Gibson and the Christie administration will be known for\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes as no surprise that more of NIB’s money is being spent in their effort to undermine or smear anything that was done under the Ingraham administration,\u201d Cash said.<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently, with the PLP in power, no Bahamian professional is safe unless they stand on a platform in Parliament Square and pledge allegiance to the PLP.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the absence of this demonstration of allegiance, no one’s job is safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FNM party plays no part in setting the agenda of the Public Accounts Committee, but we do hope that the committee will use all of its power to investigate the demonstrated incidents of wasteful spending at NIB as directed by the minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also hopeful that the new [NIB] chairman, James Moultrie, will be able to demonstrate some degree of independence and hold back the tide of wasteful spending and affect a slowdown of search and destroy missions aimed at the professionals on the PLP’s enemies list.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith respect to the minister’s House utterances about more spending and investigations, the Bahamian people are left to wonder if the minister’s targeted agenda makes the new director nothing more than a political puppet whose only usefulness will be as an agent to do the minister’s biddings.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was referring to the new NIB director, who has not yet been announced.<\/p>\n

By Travis Cartwright-Carroll <\/span><\/em>
\nGuardian Staff Reporter<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minister of Labour and National Insurance Shane Gibson said the government is conducting another audit into NIB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1834,806,1110],"class_list":["post-37048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-audit","tag-nib","tag-shane-gibson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}