GEORGE W. BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington , DC 20520
LAW ENFORCEMENT:
* Arrested in Kennebunkport , Maine (1976) for driving under the influence of alcohol. Plead guilty, paid fine; had driver's license suspended for 30 days. Texas driving record 'lost' and is not available.
MILITARY:
* Joined the Texas Air National Guard. Went AWOL. Refused to take drug test or answer any questions about personal drug use. Able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam .
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
* Graduate of Yale University with a low C average. Cheerleader.
PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
* Ran for U.S. Congress and lost.
* Began career in the oil business in Midland, Texas (1975.) Bought oil company but couldn't find any oil in Texas . Company went bankrupt shortly after selling personal stock.
* Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
* With the help of my father and friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay) elected governor of Texas .
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS :
* Changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union . Houston replaces Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America .
* Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
* Set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.
* With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, become President of the United States after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
* First President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
* Ordered invasion and occupation of two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per month. Am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked,
preemptive attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
* Spent inherited U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
* Aided in shattering the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
* Set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
* Helped set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
* Oversaw the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market.
* First year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues.
* Proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My 'poorest millionaire, 'Condoleezz Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her though.
* Established the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S.
President. Am the all-time U.S. and world record -holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations. My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History at Enron.
* My GOP used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during 2000.
* Have successfully protected friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation.
* Created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States Government.
* Help break more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.
* The first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
* Withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
* Refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. 'prisoners of war'
detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
* Established the record for fewest press conferences of any President since the advent of television.
* Set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period.
* After taking off the entire month of August 2001, I presided over the
worst security failure in U.S. history.
* Have the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.
* Am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
* All records of gubernatorial tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
* All records of SEC investigations into my alleged insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in and unavailable for public view.
* All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President attended regarding public energy policy are sealed and unavailable for public review.
* These sealed documents will not be available for 50 years.
Showing posts with label resume. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resume. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Preventing Cheque Fraud, It’s Not Rocket Science!
This week in the UK, Joyce De-Laurey was found guilty of stealing £4.4M from Goldman Sachs.
It transpires that the former secretary accumulated her “nest egg”, over a period of 14 months, by forging the signatures of two senior members of Sachs on cheques and wire transfers.
The money was used to finance a lavish lifestyle enabling her to purchase, amongst others, a villa in Cyprus for £750K, £56K of Cartier “goodies” and £20K of items from Harrods.
I have had many years international experience running internal audit departments, and investigating frauds (see resume); and am constantly surprised as to how lax some companies’ cheque authorisation procedures are.
It seems an opportune moment to remind those in business of some of the basic controls that should be in place, in order to minimise the risk of fraudulent payments (note this list is not exhaustive):
As you can see, the above points are not rocket science. However, I would bet good money that many companies, not just the hapless Goldman Sachs, may not have all of these procedures in place.
This week in the UK, Joyce De-Laurey was found guilty of stealing £4.4M from Goldman Sachs.
It transpires that the former secretary accumulated her “nest egg”, over a period of 14 months, by forging the signatures of two senior members of Sachs on cheques and wire transfers.
The money was used to finance a lavish lifestyle enabling her to purchase, amongst others, a villa in Cyprus for £750K, £56K of Cartier “goodies” and £20K of items from Harrods.
I have had many years international experience running internal audit departments, and investigating frauds (see resume); and am constantly surprised as to how lax some companies’ cheque authorisation procedures are.
It seems an opportune moment to remind those in business of some of the basic controls that should be in place, in order to minimise the risk of fraudulent payments (note this list is not exhaustive):
- There should be a hierarchy of cheque signatories. The larger the amount, the more senior the level required to sign.
- Cheques over a certain predetermined limit should have at least two signatures.
- Cheques should never be drawn without a cheque requisition being signed by a responsible official, who does not sign the cheque.
- Cheque requisitions should be supported by documentary evidence, eg invoice/purchase order.
- Transaction summaries of cheque payments should be routinely reviewed by internal audit.
- Transactions over and above a predefined norm should be checked by internal audit.
- An up to date cheque signatory list should be maintained, showing limit/authorities etc.
- The bank should be encouraged to proactively query suspicious transactions.
- Bank reconciliations should be performed regularly, and be up to date.
- All directors’/senior managers’ personal accounts should be thoroughly reviewed by internal audit on a regular basis.
- Finally, and this really ought to have rung alarm bells at Goldman Sachs, where an employee starts to display ostentatious signs of new found wealth; identify the source of this wealth.
As you can see, the above points are not rocket science. However, I would bet good money that many companies, not just the hapless Goldman Sachs, may not have all of these procedures in place.
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Characteristics of an Effective Audit Committee
I read with interest the “goings on” at Shell last week. The Chairman, Sir Philip Watts, was forced to resign on Wednesday. This was the culmination of a chain of events that started when Shell announced, on 9th January, that it had reduced its proven oil and gas reserves by 20%.
Various groups and events led to the departure of Watts. However, it is reported that the final push came from the internal audit committee; which advised the board that management changes were needed.
During my career (see my resume), I have set up a number of audit committees around the world, and have been involved with others. I was therefore pleased to see an audit committee proactively asserting itself, and being listened to.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind those less proactive audit committees, and less supportive boards, as to what in my opinion (based on my experience) constitutes the top ten characteristics of an effective audit committee:
1. The audit committee must be independent, members should not have previously held executive positions in the company for which they sit on the audit committee; eg the chairman of the audit committee should not have previously been the finance director. The company should not use the audit committee as a paid retirement home for previous directors.
2. The audit committee should be suitably qualified and experienced, at least one member should hold a relevant financial qualification; so that they can at least understand the intricacies of the company’s accounts.
3. The audit committee should present a report in the year end accounts, as to the quality and effectiveness of the internal controls and risk management process.
4. The audit committee should be prepared to take a stand against the board on matters of significance, and resign if the board does not take the appropriate corrective action.
5. The members of the audit committee should be up to the job, they should not hold an excessive number of other positions. Those that, through age, fall asleep during the meetings should be retired. Do not think that this is an exaggeration, I personally have witnessed this occurrence.
6. The audit committee should have free and unfettered access to the internal auditors and external auditors of the company, as well as the board and management of that company.
7. The role and scope of the audit committee should be laid down in a charter, which should be signed by the board and distributed within the company.
8. The internal audit department should report directly to the audit committee. Dual reporting lines, to eg the Finance Director, do not work.
9. The audit committee should be responsible for assessing the quality and effectiveness of the internal audit department and external auditors. The committee should be able to make changes, as and when required, to the scope and providers of the audit (both internal and external) coverage.
10. The audit committee should be responsible for the budget of the internal and external audit coverage. I have witnessed a situation where neither the board nor the audit committee held the budget; needless to say this did not work.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive. However, it can be used as a starting point to establish an effective and respected audit committee that adds value to the business.
I read with interest the “goings on” at Shell last week. The Chairman, Sir Philip Watts, was forced to resign on Wednesday. This was the culmination of a chain of events that started when Shell announced, on 9th January, that it had reduced its proven oil and gas reserves by 20%.
Various groups and events led to the departure of Watts. However, it is reported that the final push came from the internal audit committee; which advised the board that management changes were needed.
During my career (see my resume), I have set up a number of audit committees around the world, and have been involved with others. I was therefore pleased to see an audit committee proactively asserting itself, and being listened to.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind those less proactive audit committees, and less supportive boards, as to what in my opinion (based on my experience) constitutes the top ten characteristics of an effective audit committee:
1. The audit committee must be independent, members should not have previously held executive positions in the company for which they sit on the audit committee; eg the chairman of the audit committee should not have previously been the finance director. The company should not use the audit committee as a paid retirement home for previous directors.
2. The audit committee should be suitably qualified and experienced, at least one member should hold a relevant financial qualification; so that they can at least understand the intricacies of the company’s accounts.
3. The audit committee should present a report in the year end accounts, as to the quality and effectiveness of the internal controls and risk management process.
4. The audit committee should be prepared to take a stand against the board on matters of significance, and resign if the board does not take the appropriate corrective action.
5. The members of the audit committee should be up to the job, they should not hold an excessive number of other positions. Those that, through age, fall asleep during the meetings should be retired. Do not think that this is an exaggeration, I personally have witnessed this occurrence.
6. The audit committee should have free and unfettered access to the internal auditors and external auditors of the company, as well as the board and management of that company.
7. The role and scope of the audit committee should be laid down in a charter, which should be signed by the board and distributed within the company.
8. The internal audit department should report directly to the audit committee. Dual reporting lines, to eg the Finance Director, do not work.
9. The audit committee should be responsible for assessing the quality and effectiveness of the internal audit department and external auditors. The committee should be able to make changes, as and when required, to the scope and providers of the audit (both internal and external) coverage.
10. The audit committee should be responsible for the budget of the internal and external audit coverage. I have witnessed a situation where neither the board nor the audit committee held the budget; needless to say this did not work.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive. However, it can be used as a starting point to establish an effective and respected audit committee that adds value to the business.
Monday, January 05, 2004
The Hidden Dangers of Offshore Companies
As I noted in my article “Parmalat, Europe’s Enron”, I am highly suspicious of organisations that make use of offshore companies in their company structure.
During my years as an accountant, head of audit and head of fraud investigation (see my resume) I have come across numerous examples of offshore structures based in eg; the Caymans, Bermuda, Luxembourg and Jersey.
As far as I can see there are only five reasons why an organisation would wish to use an offshore company:
1. The “less than demanding” accounting rules, and reporting requirements, of the offshore base enable the company to “hide” transactions and relationships that it does not wish the outside world to see.
2. The tax regime of the offshore base enables the organisation to avoid tax that it would have to pay if it resided elsewhere. Note, tax avoidance is perfectly legal.
3. The tax regime, and the “less than demanding” accounting rules, of the offshore base enables the organisation to evade tax that it would have to pay if it resided elsewhere. Note, tax evasion is illegal.
4. Loading the organisation chart with numerous offshore companies, which have complex cross holdings in each other, leads to an unnecessarily complex and difficult to understand organisation. This enables the organisation to hide fraudulent transactions.
5. Offshore organisations, if the share holdings are engineered in a particular way, can be excluded from the organisation structure which is disclosed in the public accounts.
I have the following advice for investors, regulators, employees, auditors and tax investigators:
Carefully study the structure of the companies that you are dealing with, ask if there are offshore companies.
Where there are offshore companies, make sure you understand their role and their place in the organisation as a whole.
If you do not understand the structure of the company, or the role/purpose of its offshore holdings then treat it with extreme caution.
I have the feeling that the regulatory environment will tighten over the next few years, making it increasingly difficult for companies to use these dubious structures.
As I noted in my article “Parmalat, Europe’s Enron”, I am highly suspicious of organisations that make use of offshore companies in their company structure.
During my years as an accountant, head of audit and head of fraud investigation (see my resume) I have come across numerous examples of offshore structures based in eg; the Caymans, Bermuda, Luxembourg and Jersey.
As far as I can see there are only five reasons why an organisation would wish to use an offshore company:
1. The “less than demanding” accounting rules, and reporting requirements, of the offshore base enable the company to “hide” transactions and relationships that it does not wish the outside world to see.
2. The tax regime of the offshore base enables the organisation to avoid tax that it would have to pay if it resided elsewhere. Note, tax avoidance is perfectly legal.
3. The tax regime, and the “less than demanding” accounting rules, of the offshore base enables the organisation to evade tax that it would have to pay if it resided elsewhere. Note, tax evasion is illegal.
4. Loading the organisation chart with numerous offshore companies, which have complex cross holdings in each other, leads to an unnecessarily complex and difficult to understand organisation. This enables the organisation to hide fraudulent transactions.
5. Offshore organisations, if the share holdings are engineered in a particular way, can be excluded from the organisation structure which is disclosed in the public accounts.
I have the following advice for investors, regulators, employees, auditors and tax investigators:
Carefully study the structure of the companies that you are dealing with, ask if there are offshore companies.
Where there are offshore companies, make sure you understand their role and their place in the organisation as a whole.
If you do not understand the structure of the company, or the role/purpose of its offshore holdings then treat it with extreme caution.
I have the feeling that the regulatory environment will tighten over the next few years, making it increasingly difficult for companies to use these dubious structures.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
The Pentagon Boeing Affair
The Pentagon announced yesterday that it was putting its £16BN contract with Boeing on hold; whilst it investigates possible links between one of its former procurement officers, who now works for Boeing. It is alleged that the procurement officer was involved in the awarding of the contract to Boeing.
There may, of course, be nothing more to this than a simple internal review of the tendering process. However, it highlights an issue that is often overlooked by companies with respect to their internal controls and codes of conduct.
It is often assumed, falsely, that fraud and malpractice mainly occurs in the sales, stock and cash control areas of the business. Not so, my involvement over the years in fraud investigations (see my resume) proved, more often than not, that a prime area susceptible to fraud and malpractice would be the procurement and purchasing department.
Whether it involves the purchase of a few items of furniture, supplies for the canteen or a multi billion dollar contract; the procurement procedure may be open to abuse if there are weak internal controls eg:
There is no tendering process, and quotes are only obtained from one supplier.
The tendering process is not on the basis of sealed bids; this can allow one of the suppliers to find out the quotes of the others, and undercut them.
The relationship between the supplier and the procurement officer is not “arms length”, and a “deal” is done between them.
The staff in the procurement office have been in the same position for a number of years, forming close relationships with key suppliers.
Where the above scenarios occur the company, at the very least, runs the risk of paying more than it needs to for the product or service.
I would advise companies to take heed from the Boeing/Pentagon scenario, and review their procurement procedures.
The Pentagon announced yesterday that it was putting its £16BN contract with Boeing on hold; whilst it investigates possible links between one of its former procurement officers, who now works for Boeing. It is alleged that the procurement officer was involved in the awarding of the contract to Boeing.
There may, of course, be nothing more to this than a simple internal review of the tendering process. However, it highlights an issue that is often overlooked by companies with respect to their internal controls and codes of conduct.
It is often assumed, falsely, that fraud and malpractice mainly occurs in the sales, stock and cash control areas of the business. Not so, my involvement over the years in fraud investigations (see my resume) proved, more often than not, that a prime area susceptible to fraud and malpractice would be the procurement and purchasing department.
Whether it involves the purchase of a few items of furniture, supplies for the canteen or a multi billion dollar contract; the procurement procedure may be open to abuse if there are weak internal controls eg:
There is no tendering process, and quotes are only obtained from one supplier.
The tendering process is not on the basis of sealed bids; this can allow one of the suppliers to find out the quotes of the others, and undercut them.
The relationship between the supplier and the procurement officer is not “arms length”, and a “deal” is done between them.
The staff in the procurement office have been in the same position for a number of years, forming close relationships with key suppliers.
Where the above scenarios occur the company, at the very least, runs the risk of paying more than it needs to for the product or service.
I would advise companies to take heed from the Boeing/Pentagon scenario, and review their procurement procedures.
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