Some time ago, Messrs Ronald and Rustum Bulkan, Joint Managing Directors of Precision Woodworking Limited (PWL) called to request a meeting with me. Although we had brought the auditor-client relationship between Ram & McRae (the firm) and the company to an end for professional reasons several years earlier, I agreed to meet with them at our office.
At the meeting, the company’s directors informed me that there was an issue between Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited and PWL as an account holder of the Bank over what they claimed was a deposit of a certain sum of money to the company’s account. They explained that they were seeking my representation in the matter.
I responded that for professional reasons, neither the firm nor I could offer any representation or information to them in the matter. What we did not disclose was that, out of an abundance of caution, we not only reviewed the working papers in our office but a partner of the firm was asked to carry out a further review of the alleged deposit. We found that there was no such deposit.
Despite our refusal to engage the company, the directors insisted on maintaining written contact with the firm by direct letter to us, or by copy of letters addressed to other persons. An example of the first is a letter dated May 29, 2014 copied to Attorneys-at-Law Messrs Khemraj Ramjattan and Joseph Harmon. That letter contained certain statements and repeated the writers’ hope that “this intervention of ours will not be a futile one.”
Consistent with our earlier position, we responded on June 20, 2014 that we are not permitted to engage in communication with customers of our clients except in the course of and directly related to our audit. We suggested that they take the matter up with the management of the Bank.
We received another letter bearing the same date, this time making further statements concerning their account and the deposit of $82,068,617 which they claimed “was not deposited by [them].” We did not consider it necessary or appropriate to respond for three reasons: i) it was professionally inappropriate; ii) our audit had established to our satisfaction that there was no deposit and hence, no merit to the complaint; and iii) the matter was under litigation.
That correspondence appeared in the Kaieteur News on June 2, 2014 as an “open letter”, prompting our firm to write to the Editor of the Kaieteur News and to the court, rejecting a statement reportedly made in court by the company that the letter was released to Kaieteur News, incorrectly and implausibly, by Ram & McRae.
The most recent correspondence addressed to me as Managing Partner, Ram & McRae and President, Guyana Bar Association, was a copy of a letter dated December 21. 2015, signed by Messrs Ronald and Rustum Bulkan addressed to Dr C Y Thomas, Head of the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU). In that letter the writers related, among other things, the discredited claim about a deposit of $82,068,617 having been made by a named individual. The letter sought the intervention of SARU and was copied to eleven (11) persons.
The next development was a report in the Kaieteur News of Wednesday January 6, 2016 (‘SARU probes local bank accused of money laundering’). The report claimed, among other things, that the Managing Partner of Ram & McRae was written to by the account holder informing him that the account holder was in possession of information which could prove (emphasis ours) that the deposit of $82,068,617 was effected by a named person.
While neither PWL nor any of its directors was named in the report, the sum referred to is identical to that which Messrs Ronald and Rustum Bulkan had claimed in their letter of June 20, 2014 to Ram & McRae as having been deposited to the account of their company.
We are aware that PWL and RBL are engaged in court proceedings concerning the receivership of the company: See Precision Woodworking and Ronald and Rustum Bulkan -v- Kashir Khan and Republic Bank Guyana Limited – Action No, 298 C l) of 2012. In the court pleadings, which are public records, the Bank specifically denied the existence of the alleged deposit of $82,068,617.
Ram & McRae wishes to make it very clear that the firm was never provided with any proof of any deposit of $82,068,617 to any account holder of Republic Bank Limited, including Precision Woodworking Limited.