Housing Corp failing to submit financial report

By MALUM NALU
The controversial National Housing Corporation has not submitted financial statements for 2014, 2015 and 2016 to the Auditor-General’s Office, according to the Auditor-General’s Report for 2016.
The Auditor-General’s check on NHC’s 2013 financial statement revealed massive discrepancies which left it open to “abuse and fraud”.
This included the sale of properties worth more than K11.2 million with no supporting documents.
Thousands of kina were paid out in cashable cheques to staff members and service providers.
Minutes of board meetings were not provided.
“The financial statements of National Housing Corporation for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2013, was not prepared from a properly maintained accounts and records, and lacked supporting documentation and evidence,” said Auditor-General Philip Nauga.
“The errors, omissions, irregularities and misstatements were so significant.
“The internal control weaknesses in management accounting, record keeping and payment procedures had negatively impacted the reliability, validity, completeness and correctness of the financial information disclosed in the financial statements.
“Controls over billing, collection of revenues and accounting of debtors and revenues had been very deficient. The corporation’s incomes were not properly managed and were exposed to abuse and fraud.
“The debtors’ subsidiary ledger system was not properly maintained and lacked integration with the general ledger.
“I recommended to the management to create a debtors’ subsidiary ledger system to integrate with billing and cash receipting system and general ledger.
“The corporation did not maintain a fixed assets register in 2013.
“This was a very serious internal control lapse.
“The corporation without having a fixed assets register posed a high risk for loss of its properties.
“Also, valuation of the properties was not done periodically to establish fair values at any given point of time.
“I carried out property inspection at NHC head office, Lae, Madang and Goroka and noted that the corporation owns and had in its custody properties that can run into hundreds of millions of kina.”
The corporation in 2013 sold some of its properties worth K11,238,770.
“Documents and records in relation to the sale of the properties including tender documents, contracts of sales, and settlement statements were not provided for my review,” Nauga said.
“Record-keeping was very deficient and the management was unable to retrieve and provide all the necessary information and documents on the properties sold.”