The October 2, 21019 FCT Annual General Membership Meeting (AGM) chalked up another one for the books. Halloween has indeed arrived early for its members.
First off, elected were the current board members, principally the ‘same sailors rowing the same boat’. Most of the current board members stayed put, meaning current culture prevailed or a status quo.
The AGM was not without episodes.
One arose when a simple question from the floor – as to the membership status of certain candidates, caused quite a stir as the election committee, chaired by Rose Tijam, scrambled to check the most up to date membership list. This prompted a motion from the floor to take the time consuming verification activity offline.
Further on a complaint was raised as to why nominations from the floor were not allowed. A nomination deadline was instead imposed and apparently sent (not all received) to members. This move evidently was a clear departure from the usual procedures.
More contentious was the review of the financial report issued by the company recently hired by the FCT Board to do a review engagement of the 2017-2018 Financial Statements. This came as a Halloween surprise to many members as an independent third party financial audit was more the third party engagement that was expected. The reviewers explained their work was not a financial audit but simply a review of the financial numbers given to them by the FCT Board to ensure they are posted and reconciled properly. The reviewer stated their work was still underway as evidenced by ‘DRAFT’ labeled on the pages of the review report.
When members asked about the reporting of certain huge expense amounts on payables, the reviewer promptly deferred to the Board to address those questions. The resulting back and forth failed to achieve any meaningful answers. The reviewers suggested that it is always best the FCT Board clears those pending financial issues internally with its members and not leave them to independent auditors to resolve.
Member petitioners pointed out that the previous petitions called for an independent third party financial audit, never for a review engagement. And that the petitions asked for members to be engaged in the selection of the third party auditor.
Not only did the FCT Board fail to carry out the approved member motion for that audit in the October 3, 2018 AGM but worse it blatantly ignored the 26 member petitions following up on that audit motion. Also, the 2018 Minutes confirmed that an auditor was then hired to do an independent audit. No clear explanation however was given as to the outcome of that audit engagement.
The member petitioners were strong and clear in calling for an independent third party financial audit. It was rather unfortunate that certain members against it resorted to heckling the petitioners only to spoil the evening meeting.
As a replay of previous FCT Meetings and much to many members’ disappointment FCT still has no member-approved 2016 Financial Statement, and the 2017 and 2018 financial statements have yet to be restated and finalized. It has now been two years and nine months since the sale of FCT’s office building. The situation is purely embarrassing.
Final outcome – still no Audit, still no approved Financial Statements.
It is hoped that with the newly elected set of Board members, the quote of FCT chairman Mr. Efren de Villa in his invocation will be realized “that the members of the board elected will be guided to work with honesty and transparency”.