Who was responsible for flawed UB financial reports?

It has been a bad week for the University of Belize. A financial crisis brought the university to its knees when the current Board of Trustees received information from the Chief Financial Officer and his team which indicated that U.B. was about to go broke. That prompted the board of trustees to implement austerity measures to rescue the finances. The result was three days of protests and demonstrations. A new audit of the finances has now been ordered.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting
The background is that in March, the board held a meeting with the faculty and staff to discuss the possibility of an increment freeze on salaries. But the staff had only recently seen a three year increment freeze being lifted, so they were not inclined to take another hit on their paycheck. But by June the decision was made to implement the freeze on salary increments of employees earning above twenty thousand dollars a year. This came in force on August first.
But there were some conflicting data in the quarterly financial reports. The budget performance report for the last quarter ending in July 2009 showed savings in utility bills. Yet the budget report for the entire year showed that UB overspent on utilities by over two hundred thousand dollars. That’s a large gap in the two reports. Questionable expenses were also noted. Traveling expenses for the period mounted to ninety six thousand dollars, food expenditure at one hundred and twenty two thousand dollars, and international consultant fees reached one hundred thousand dollars. The July report shows approximately a million and a half dollars in surplus. And that figure was separate from a million dollars set aside for the construction of a Health Science Complex. So in one instance it appears that the management including the Chief Financial Officer of the university is allowing unchecked spending and having a seven digit surplus, while the reports reaching the board of trustees indicated a serious cash flow problem. Since the one day sick out staged by the teachers and the vocal show of support by the students, a closer look had to be made on the UB books. The Chair of the Board of Trustees ordered a draft audit of the period in question which is for the 2007 to 2008 financial year. And it is showing that things at UB aren’t as bad as the reports handed to the board indicated and it consequently reversed the decision to freeze the increments. It’s a big mess that got the entire school riled up. And Imani Fairweather Morrison, the Board Chair said yesterday that the board would take:

Imani Fairweather Morrison, Chair, UB Board
“Immediate and appropriate action with respect to those responsible for the omission that eventually led to the unfortunate sequence of events that transpired over the past few days.”