By Tina Comeau
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
A forensic audit of the defunct South West Shore Development Authority (SWSDA) is still underway.
A four-to-six month timeframe had been attached to the forensic audit, which began at the end October. The audit is being carried out by Ernst and Young.
In announcing the forensic audit last year Percy Paris, Minister of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism, had said, "Municipalities and local businesses are concerned about what happened to the money given to SWSDA. This is an attempt to find out where that money went and why so many good local businesses and municipalities are left with significant unpaid bills."
Those unpaid bills add up to around $2.3 million and creditors owed money by SWSDA still find themselves left out in the cold a year-and-a-half after SWSDA folded.
Asked last week if the scope of the audit is still the same as it was when it was first announced, Toby Koffman, a spokesperson for the Department of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism said it is.
“It is still to conduct an independent forensic examination into the financial transactions of SWSDA to assist the government in determining if funding was appropriately expended,” he said. “And to provide a fact-finding report on these transactions that is legally sustainable.”
