Telemedia’s Annual General Meeting

Telemedia’s Annual General Meeting is taking place tonight. But are there errors in the Auditor’s report that will be presented at that AGM? Reports to News Five say that attorneys for the BTL Employees Trust wrote to Telemedia’s Auditors, PKF Belize, challenging what they term as “significant errors” in the report and financials. The letter was written on the strength of expert accounting advice obtained by the Trust.  They take issue with the fact that financial statements for the year ended March thirty-first, 2010 were presented in September’s BTL sale prospectus as “unaudited” when in fact those 2010 financial statements had already been signed off by PKF back in July. The attorneys also point out that the Prospectus, released in October, used different figures, and deliberately withheld vital information that was clearly available at the time. The letter alleges that it was also an error to sign off on the 2010 audited financial statements including the loan of twenty-two point five million US dollars, when the nationalization of that loan had already taken place in August 2009, and Telemedia and Government were both saying it was an illegal loan.

As it relates to Channel Five, a receivable of ten point six million Belize dollars has been included in the balance sheet merely on the strength of the decision by Telemedia’s new board to pursue recovery of the value of Channel Five. This, the letter alleges, should not have been authorized since the collection is uncertain. Telemedia is still only at the stage of seeking legal advice fifteen months after the distribution of Channel Five, and according to the lawyers, this overstatement of assets is in clear breach of international accounting standards.

As we said, the AGM is ongoing tonight.