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The Buck Stops Here
In a statement this afternoon Senator Roosevelt David commented that after sitting through the Committee on Finance meeting on Tuesday, April 22, 2003,and listening to testimony from the Virgin Islands Lottery officials, he is unequivocally and firmly convinced that a thorough audit of the agency is warranted.
"It has become crystal clear to me that the Virgin Islands Lottery has great potential for tremendous revenue enhancement, but it is difficult to achieve this with the appearance of the office being in shambles. It is evident that a major shake up is required to clean up what seems to be a convoluted mess", Senator David said.
David went on to say that it was brought to his attention that several batches of important financial information have not been posted to the general ledger, and that some financial reports created may not be reliable, and therefore could produce inaccurate results.
He added that it was also revealed in the Finance Committee meeting that there is no checks and balances in place to curtail questionable transactions, involving significant amounts of monies that are handled by the agency.
"Quite frankly", he concluded, "I left the meeting convinced that there are more problems and questions than there are answers. And so a more critical review of the Virgin Islands Lottery System must be done; followed by immediate remedial action for a successful operation of the agency.
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