Local football members are questioning the decision to appoint Aegis Business Solutions, a premier outsourcing & advisory services provider in the Caribbean, as the T&T Football Association's auditor for 2021, 2022 and beyond.
This will be decided at a virtual Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the T&TFA on Monday at 5:30 pm. The decision to propose Aegis Business Solutions as a replacement for Madan Ramnarine and Company comes after a literal juggling exercise that eventually led to the resignation of Madan Ramnarine and Company on December 31 last year (2021).
Guardian Media Sports was told that the Normalization Committee hosted the 2020/2021 T&T Football Association Annual General Meeting (AGM) on September 26, last year and proposed the appointment of Grant Thornton Orbit Solutions (GTO) as the external auditors for the financial statements for 2020 and 2021.
At the 2020/2021 AGM, the TTFA Membership identified a clerical error in the 2019 AGM Minutes which led to Madan Ramnarine & Co being appointed as the auditors for TTFA’s Financial Statements for 2020. The AGM then reconfirmed that Madan Ramnarine & Co be appointed as auditors for the TTFA’s Financial Statement for 2020 and Grant Thornton Orbit Solution be appointed the auditors for the TTFA’s Financial Statements for 2021.
However, on October 6, last year, Madan Ramnarine & Co resigned and the normalization committee, being led by businessman Robert Hadad approached (GTO) to be the auditor for 2020. They were also expected to do the financial statements for 2021.
In a sudden turn of events, however, GTO declined the appointment following the resignation of Madan Ramnarine and Company, thereby opening the door for Hadad and company to approach Aegis Business Solutions, BDO and PKF to submit proposals to conduct the audits of the TTFA’s financials.
Both Aegis Business Solutions and PKF were the only ones to submit proposals as the other company (BDO) pulled out based on a potential conflict of interest due to their provisions of forensic and other services in other territories for FIFA and CONCACAF.
The normalisation committee in a release explained to its members that it received proposals from Aegis and PKF and based on their analysis of the proposals as well as the cost differentials, Aegis' proposal was accepted and is being proposed to the TTFA General Membership for approval.
Yesterday Selby Browne, president of the Veteran Football Foundation (VFF) and Akel Baig, general secretary of the Northern Football Association wrote to the Hadad and company expressing their concern.
Baig in his representation of the NFA is demanding answers to; why has Madan Ramnarine resigned; why three different external auditing firms by the NC in one year; what did it cost the TTFA to retain three auditing firms; demanding a statement of independence from new auditors; what was the procurement method used to select an external auditor; how does Aegis Business Solutions intend to deal with the state of bankruptcy highlighted by the normalisation committee; and how many audits have Aegis done under bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings.
Browne also had some questions for the normalisation committee that centre around:
1. The proposal for another audit firm without a profile of that company is attached to the Notice, as was the case with the proposal for Grant Thornton; 2. The reason for the replacement of Grant Thornton, while it is wondered whether it is their non-independence of the TTFA, CONCACAF and FIFA;
3. Whether the process of extending invitations to submit proposals from all the major accounting firms with operations in the Republic was utilized to include the big four globally, namely, KPMG, PWC, Deloitte and EY.