CASE STUDY:

A lawyer in Nadi, several executives and some members of the Then India Sanmargya Sangam of Fiji are claiming there have been misappropriation of funds in relation to the Nadi Temple accounts.

Immediate past president of the Then India Sanmargya Sangam of Fiji, Dorsami Naidu, is also claiming that there have been no proper audits done on the Nadi Temple accounts.

The Fiji Sun has cited an email sent by Mr Naidu to the national president, national treasurer, general secretary, the CEO, chairperson (Nadi Temple), national executives and council of management, seeking answers to the claims.

He said the national executives and members of the council of management had a grave responsibility to ensure that there was transparency.

Mr Naidu claims that

• Gold chains gifted by devotees to the temple have been sold when it should be retained, and that the arbitrary sale of the gold items was not transparent. (Proper appraisals were not carried out and the sale if it was necessary should have been advertised and devotees given the first opportunity.).
• There has been short banking on a regular basis regarding the Nadi Temple accounts, amounting to thousands of dollars since 2018, if not earlier.
• That a temple executive(s) has taken funds from the temple in exchange for his company/personal cheques when he did not have sufficient funds in the cheque accounts.
• (Also, a sum more than $30,000 has been sent through an international money transfer system without raising Letters of Credit (LC), resulting in funds being lost.)

Mr Naidu believes this may only be a tip of the iceberg.

Mr Naidu also claims that the senior sangam executive and senior temple executive have paid from their pockets a small part of this loss instead of reporting the suspect or suspects to the Police for appropriate action.

Now that the matter has become public knowledge within the Sangam community, Mr Naidu said the national executives have decided to hold a meeting on April 5 to sweep this whole mess under the carpet.

It is with their intention to appoint several so-called independent persons to audit the Temple accounts.

When Fiji Sun contacted the temple president, Gandhi Mestry, for a comment, he directed all questions to the TISI Sangam chief executive, Jai Narayan.

When Mr Narayan was contacted, he said: Those are all allegations, and we cannot comment on those. Only the national president can comment.

TISI Sangam national president Sadasiwan Naicker confirmed a meeting was held in Nadi on April 5.

I can confirm that during the meeting there was no committee set up to investigate. But as the national president I have directed to seek an external auditor to be appointed specifically to investigate the matter and report to the board, he said.

Question 1:

1. How the fraud was perpetrated and what was the total value of the fraud. (5 marks)
2. How was the fraud identified and what investigation procedures were adopted (or should be adopted) to locate such a fraud (5 marks)
3. Suggest measures to prevent such a fraud in future. (5 marks)