RSU financial review finds over $99,000 of illegitimate expenses by previous team
The illegitimate expenses were done by the former president, vice-president operations and financial controller of the union.
Presentation of the financial review by RSU president and executive director. (Mariam Nouser/The Canada Files)
Written by: Mariam Nouser
The results of the financial review released at Monday’s semi-annual general meeting (SAGM), reveal that there was over $99,000 in illegitimate expenses by the former Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) president, vice-president of operations and financial controller.
According to the review conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), around $127,000 worth of transactions had no receipts and over $59,000 of the expenditures were done by the former financial controller, Dharshini Jay.
The financial report stated that the RSU received PwC’s findings on Oct. 14, 2019. Shortly, after the RSU created an audit committee consisting of RSU president Vanessa Henry, now former vice-president of operations Augustine Onuh, executive director Reanna Maharaj and financial controller Priya Paul.
In the committee’s report, over $99,000 of the roughly $127,000 was seen as illegitimate.
According to Maharaj, in March 2018, the former RSU president, Ram Ganesh, also retained a new lawyer to assist with the union’s legal affairs with the former executives’ approval. The legal and first-class travel expenses from India totalling over $36,000 were discovered by the audit committee.
What is the RSU doing now?
“The audit committee completed a thorough comparison of PwC’s spreadsheet with RSU’s financial policies and by-laws,” said RSU executive director Reanna Maharaj. “With that, we were able to see where other expenses may have come from.”
According to the RSU president Vanessa Henry, all previous credit cards have been cancelled and there is now only one under the control of the financial controller, Priya Paul.
“The approval process [of using the credit card] will consist of the management reviewing the credit card form to approve or deny the request,” said Henry.
The report also stated that the credit card limit has also been reduced from $20,000 to $10,000.
Fourth-year media production student Ubah Guled raised concerns on the approval process of expenditures citing that friends typically get elected together and would automatically approve their friend’s request.
“The RSU needs to employ more full-time staff that take care of the financial operations of the union,” said Guled. “People who are separate from the university and are full-time professionals that can ensure money isn’t being mismanaged.”
Students waiting for the SAGM, which revealed the financial review to start. (Mariam Nouser/The Canada Files)
RSU’s future is unknown
With Ryerson University terminating its operating agreement with the RSU on Jan. 24, a lot is up in the air regarding the future of the RSU. The university set conditions that the RSU conduct a forensic audit and release it to the university in addition to creating a new agreement. However, Ryerson ended the agreement prior to the announced release date of the findings, on Monday.
The RSU failed to release the official financial audit, instead choosing to showcase a financial report from PwC.
“The findings were important to be shown but it’s unfortunate that the university pulled the plug on the RSU just before the release of the review,” said RSU director Milad Moghaddas.
When asked, Moghaddas said he does not have proper insight into what can be done next to rectify the situation but hopes that the university and the RSU can come to an agreement soon.