Ali explained that there is a problem with collection because of years of poor documentation and "practices such as verbal bookings for advertisements."
The PAEC was reviewing CNMG accounts for the year 2007-2008. Senator Fazal Karim asked whether there was a possiblity that the company might become insolvent. Ali said that might have been so in 2008 but indicated that CNMG is now "seeing indications of a turn around".
However he stated that there is a serious issue with the outstanding debt, noting that some of the accounts are worth worth more than $400,000, with government ministries account for about $1 million owed.
"What we've found is that it's very difficult to get supporting documents for us to make these claims for payments," Ali pointed out.
Senator Subhas Panday noted that Government is "pumping money" into the company and they needed to locate these documents.
Ali said when he took over as CEO last year "we found that in many cases, not in all ... there were verbal bookings for the placement of advertising and when of course the payments were not made the company..."
Panday suggested that the directors needed to be found and "somebody's got to be accountable for this". He pointed out that their civil claims for payments have a statute of four years and they need to deal with the issue "expeditiously".
The chairman of the PAEC, opposition Senator Fitzgerald Hinds said they there is an urgent need to appoint a new board for CNMG.
Ali also revealed that wages and salaries at CNMG are higher that in similar media companies, noting that employees are on contract and some of them were hired from other companies and had to be paid more.
He told the PAEC the company is looking at seriously at reducing administrative costs and investing in more local programming.
No comments:
Post a Comment