Review finds no wrongdoing by former CISNOC staff

The Audit review for unidentified payments by CISNOC totalling $32,465.00 prompting public concern and especially from within the sporting codes, has confirmed in its Quarterly Report that there is no evidence to suggest any fraudulent activity by any of the former CISNOC management staff or Executive Board members with regards to the 12 payments under review.
Audit’s report was tabled in Parliament on Monday 24 November 2009 by its Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Sir Terepai Maoate.
This will no doubt be a relief to those staff members who were cast “under suspicion” as a result of speculation, allegation and undue stress as a result of this review. As one person commented (who wished to remain anonymous) these people were accused, tried and punished through the media and placed under considerable duress because of the allegations of potential fraudulent activities.
In its findings, Audit has also identified a number of anomalies with regards to financial and administrative management discrepancies over the handling of the 12 cheques which were at the heart of the review. These included; cheques written out to cash, lack of policies over the payments to national sports federations, limited information available when posting to general ledger and payment vouchers were not properly authorized, certified or signed by the preparer.
8 of the 12 cheques were cashed over the counter at Westpac Bank and were approved by the former Finance Officer herself. This practice was of concern to Audit who discovered during the course of the Review, there were no control procedures in place at the time to manage this process in order to minimize or eliminate elements of risk regarding fraud. Audit also found that the main difficulty during the review process was the lack of supporting documentation available for audit purposes.
Since the Audit review was undertaken, Audit has found under the new management structures of CISNOC that there have been marked improvements to its financial policies manual and that the new office policy clearly segregates the responsibility approving the payment voucher and signing of cheques. In concluding, Audit identified an unaccounted balance of $843.00 was due to poor record keeping and was therefore considered immaterial.
It is important to understand that while there were aspects of human error and weak internal financial control and reporting systems, there was no evidence of fraudulent activity. Unfortunately, this does not remove the stigma of shame and embarrassment imposed on those staff members who were wrongly accused and perhaps some form of apology is in order for those concerned.

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