The Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association continues to investigate how $78,000 dollars was misappropriated from its accounts.
An audit of the association's financials say that between 2012 and 2014, 6 employees managed to put together a scheme in which they were paid their own versions of bonuses on every pay check.
But how did it go unnoticed for more than a year? That's what we asked the association's Vice Chairman today:
Alfredo Ortega - Vice-Chairman, Committee Of Management, BSCFA
"We were not doing external audits. We were mostly only guided by the flow cert auditors. For the past 2 years, we have managed to do our external audits a little bit earlier, but this year we started much earlier than before. This year, we got the services of Mr. Mark Hulse's company, and the auditor was the one who found out that there was a situation in regards to the salary being channelled through the online payment. He presented that to the accountant, and then senior accountant, which was then presented to the CEO. We were called in a meeting as the Committee of Management that there has been a discovery of irregularities within that section. What we did then is that we demanded that a thorough investigation be done with all the banking institutions where the online payment has been channelled through. Based on that, the contract was given to the same company could do the investigation. When it was finalized, and the presentation came to us, it amount to $78,600, which was channelled to 4 or 5 different staff members. I can't release their names because we'll be presenting that to the farmers in a general meeting, and which we have not proceeded through the court against these people because they have come forward and said that they will be paying the money to the Association, in the a period of 3 months. So, we are waiting on that to happen."
At the advice of their attorney, and the Labour Department, the chief employee who was in charge of the online payments, has been terminated. She is suspected as the ring leader. The other 5 staffers continues to keep their post because the association is carefully weighing their options on their fates. Ortega says that they Association is trying to avoid liabilities by simply terminating them without due process.
