October 29, 2006	Sunday	Shawwal 5, 1427

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KARACHI, Oct 28: International amateur boxing was rocked on Saturday when International Boxing Association (AIBA) chief Anwar Chowdhry of Pakistan came under spotlight for being involved in financial irregularities.

Investigations made as well as AIBA documents obtained by Dawn revealed that Chowdhry flouted AIBA’s financial regulations as he didn’t submit the four-year financial supporting documents even after the June 30, 2006 deadline.

According to AIBA-appointed Swiss auditing firm Fiduciaire Tucker, it is mandatory for the AIBA president to submit supporting documents by June 30 each year.

However, in Chowdhry’s case the original invoices and supporting documents never reached AIBA headquarters in Lausanne during the past four years. While a US-based Pakistani, Matin Syed is the official auditor of AIBA, Fiduciaire Tucker’s responsibility is to perform accounting for the payments and receipts based on the supporting documents provided by the management.

Reliable sources said Chowdhry didn’t comply despite being requested repeatedly by Fiduciaire Tucker to send the documents. The Swiss company first requested AIBA on Feb 27, 2006 to provide Chowdhry’s financial supporting documents but to no avail.

“As you know we are preparing AIBA accounts for four years ending June 30, 2006 for presentation to your members and to the IOC. To date, despite many reminders, we have not received the expenses from Anwar Chowdhry and this is for the past three and a half years. This is now getting embarrassing since we would not like to have to qualify the audit report because of the uncertainty relating to the expenses of Prof Chowdhry,” company representative, Clive Tucker wrote to the then AIBA administrative secretary, Paul Svehlik.

Tucker further stated: “Please also be aware that during the years you have made advances to the professor that, if no expense justifications are provided, should be considered as salary subject to Swiss social charges and income tax to be deducted at source. This treatment of the advances will increase AIBA’s cost for the professor of approximate 40 to 50 per cent of the amounts advanced. You will understand that this treatment of the advances on top the additional expenses could be harmful for the association’s image. Thus it is crucial that we obtain promptly the expense justifications from the professor.”

Chowdhry, who is also chairman of Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF), was directly reminded on March 27, 2006 by Tucker to send expenses details for the years 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05, informing that according to Swiss tax and accounting laws original invoices and supporting documents for expenses should be submitted to make accounting entries in the 2005-06 accounts.

“Please be aware that we cannot modify 2002-02, 2003-04 and 2004-05 accounts since they have already been closed and submitted to the Swiss tax authorities. Following the audit of the fact-finding commission, Mr Michel Baudel (AIBA executive committee member) and Mr Cedric Rigoli (AIBA administrative secretary) have instructed me not to account for expenses if original invoices have not been provided. This entails that no reimbursements can be made prior to the receipt of the original invoices.”

Tucker again sent an e-mail dated April 10, 2006, asking Chowdhry to submit original invoices of the expenses only to receive a refusal from AIBA chief.

“For the last 20 odd years my accounts are prepared in Karachi and audited by Mr Matin Syed, auditor of AIBA. I have already submitted my accounts for 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05 for auditing to Syed. The accounts for the year 2005-06 will be submitted in the month of July 2006 for auditing to Syed. I find no reason to change the practice that is working for the last almost quarter of a century,” Chowdhry had replied through an e-mail on April 13, 2006.

But the question is when Chowdhry is willing to present his supporting documents to Matin for accounts audit, then why is he reluctant to send them to the Swiss auditing firm?

However, AIBA secretary-general Caner Doganeli confirmed that Chowdhry had violated AIBA financial regulations by not submitting the supporting documents. “(Matin) Syed, (Clive) Tucker and I were present during the last auditing. Chowdhry had sent only a page showing where expenditures were made. The supporting documents were not submitted till July 26, 2006 which is against AIBA financial regulations,” Doganeli told Dawn from Ankara, Turkey.

Doganeli says that according to AIBA financial regulations, the president and secretary-general should send their expenditures along with supporting documents each year to AIBA headquarters which prepares a report along with Matin who then presents the report to AIBA executive committee for approval.

“As per Swiss tax and accounting laws, original invoices and supporting documents for all expenses are needed. I came to know about Chowdhry’s financial irregularities through a Fiduciaire Tucker letter dated Feb 27, 2006. I asked Chowdhry several times to submit the supporting documents but we didn’t receive anything,” said AIBA secretary.

Chowdhry, who has been AIBA president since 1986, was not available for comments as family sources said he had left for Santa Domingo to attend AIBA meetings and contest elections.

Sources said Chowdhry is likely to face a storm at AIBA meetings in Santa Domingo starting Nov 1.