AUDITOR General Pamela Monroe Ellis yesterday defended figures presented in the recently published report of a 2010 to 2015 audit of the Factories Corporation of Jamaica (FCJ), in relation to the sale of 11.5 acres of lands to a private trust for just $10,000.

As set out in the report, Cabinet approved the seemingly paltry sale price for the property, located in the South West St Andrew constituency of Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller, even though it was valued at $164 million.

Shortly after the report became public in May of this year, chairman of the South West St Andrew Trust, Professor Winston Davidson, told the

Jamaica Observer that: “For the auditor general to suggest that the land cost $164 million is stupid because which land in the ghetto area, downtown Kingston, could have cost that?”

Yesterday, Monroe Ellis made it clear during a sitting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that her department does not conduct land valuations, and that it was in fact the FCJ that had quoted the price from its audited financials.

“As auditors we do not get involved in valuations, so the sum of $164 million would have been a figure reported by the FCJ. The standard requires that to support disclosed figures an auditor must rely on an expert, and in this instance, the AGD (Auditor General’s Department) are not the external auditors for FCJ and I assume that the external auditors would have had the benefit of a valuation. In accounting for this transfer, the FCJ recognised a loss on disposal of $163 million.

Yesterday, junior minister Everald Warmington slammed the FCJ officials present at the PAC meeting for not having defended the auditor general when she was being criticised. “What I find strange is that none of you came… out with a statement and said that value didn’t come from the auditor general, it came from your own books. At least it would have been honest and fair if you guys had done that and left it in the public domain where people who do not understand believe that the auditor general is making mischief. I would have expected you or your staff to have corrected that; I’m surprised at you, and disappointed in you. It’s unfair,” Warmington said, directing his ire across the chamber at acting managing director of the FCJ, Kenneth Rowe.

Monroe Ellis said, too, in the report that the Cabinet decision indicated that the beneficiary of the trust is the community but that the directors of the trust were three private individuals. “The trust was not registered with the Registrar General’s Department or the Department of Co-operative and Friendly Societies; hence we were unable to obtain a copy of the Trust Deed to validate the beneficiary of the trust. Further, we noted that the title did not include a restrictive caveat to prevent the unauthorised disposal of the property in whole or in part. Consequently, we were unable to determine the terms and conditions governing the transfer,” the audit team stated.