About three months after Premier Dr. Orlando Smith announced that the firm KPMG would audit the cruise pier project, Financial Secretary Neil Smith said in an April 2016 interview that the probe was under way.
Then, at an August 2016 press conference, Governor John Duncan appeared to confirm that claim, saying that Dr. Smith “has engaged” KPMG to conduct the audit and that the report should be available in the “coming weeks.”
However, neither of those statements were entirely accurate,according to Dr. Smith, who said last Thursday in the House of Assembly that the audit didn’t actually begin until last September, and that he’s not sure when it will be completed.
The financial secretary clarified this week that government and KPMG were in “serious discussions” in mid-2016 about how the audit would be conducted, but the contract wasn’t finalised until last September.
“Unfortunately, the depth and scope of the requested audit required many pieces to be put in place and held together by various contracts and legal arrangements that required negotiations and finalised agreements between various parties,” Mr. Smith stated in an e-mail. “To my annoyance, these various pieces took a few months. Although regrettably this took some time, it was necessary to answer all questions once and for all.”
Guv’s explanation
The Governor’s Office, for its part, responded to the Beacon’s inquiry into the issue by explaining that Mr. Duncan believed the audit had already commenced by the time of his press conference, but he later found out that he was mistaken.
“When the governor spoke to the media in August, he was under the impression that following the undertaking from the BVI government the audit had commenced,” stated the response from the Governor’s Office. “It was only subsequently that the governor was made aware that the contract with KPMG was not concluded until the month after his press statement (i.e. September of that year).”
Dr. Smith initially announced in January 2016 that government planned to commission an independent audit to address the “rumours” about the $85 million-plus project, which saw cost overruns of at least $30 million and construction delays that resulted in lost government revenue.
Opposition criticism
That announcement was met with criticism from opposition members, who accused government of “investigating itself” and called for Mr. Duncan to commission an inquiry into the project.
In March 2015, Mr. Duncan had announced that he would not commission an inquiry, and last May the governor said he stood by that decision and that he supported government’s plan to commission KPMG to conduct an audit.
This week his office reiterated this position.
“Despite the delay, the audit is now being carried out by a highly reputable independent consultant and should resolve any outstanding concerns around the procurement procedures for goods and services for this important project,” the e-mail to the Beacon stated.
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