A member of the Special Parliamentary Committee on Public Sector Reform and Service Delivery is appalled that it has taken this long for the Lawyers Statutory Committee to investigate two matters alleging money laundering.
Northern Governor Gary Juffa at the hearing on Wednesday said the matters relating to accusations made in July 2015 on an SBS report concerning lawyers Greg Sheppard and Harvey Maladina should be given immediate attention as it is a matter of public interest.
He told Vincent Mirupasi, the Chairman of the Lawyers Statutory Committee, that this matter should have been dealt with in a timely manner while it’s still fresh in the minds of the public when people are curious.
“We are all agitated and wondering what is going on. I’m just appalled that it is taking this long to deal with this matter.
The committee was told by Mirupasi yesterday that although investigations have started with the collection of the two lawyers’ statements, two accounting firms asked to audit the Trust accounts of the law firms concerned have not done so due to conflict of interest.
“In the interest of justice or having this matter dealt with in a timely manner, the matter should be escalated; a timeline should be given,” Juffa said.
Mirupasi said they want to get rid of the matter as well but not everybody is on the same boat. The committee is a voluntary based organisation with no funding capacity, no investigators and members who have full time jobs.
“We are equally not happy with the progress of the matter because we want to get rid of them because we have another year coming up and more complaints keep coming,” he said.
Meanwhile, Peter Zabaks, a Partner with accounting firm KPMG also told the committee yesterday that a scope work was given to them. The scope of work was designed as a Trust account Audit which didn’t have a primary focus of investigating money laundering.
“We then attempted to engage again with the Law Society to follow up with what the actual scope of work would be and after number of follow ups, that didn’t actually progress any further,” he said.
As for comments made on conflict of interest by the accounting firm, Zabaks said he is not sure where the perceived conflict of interest perception came from.
“What we do understand is that from a Trust account audit perspective, you can’t re-audit something that already been audited,” he added.