Nunavik Investment Corp. fails forensic audit

Johnny Oovaut, the chairperson of the Nunavik Investment Corp., tells counsellors at the Kativik Regional Government meeting in Puvirnituq that the Kuujjuaq-based NIC is likely to close. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

(revised)

PUVIRNITUQ — The Nunavik Investment Corp., after failing a forensic audit, will likely close its Kuujjuaq office soon and cease operations.

That’s the news brought May 29 by its chairperson, Johnny Oovaut, to the Kativik Regional Council meeting in Puvirnituq.

The reason: forensic auditors claimed that some of the loans made by the organization went to relatives of its board, a claim that Oovaut said is not true.

And $2.2 million of the $3 million the NIC loaned out hasn’t been re-paid.

“That’s a major problem,” Oovaut said. “We can’t continue to accumulate interest and a deficit.”

The organization had received money in 2006 from Quebec to create “businesses to support the development of dynamic and growing economic sectors of mining, tourism, energy and transportation.”

As a result of the auditors’ findings, the money the NIC was to receive from the federal government for operations was cut to $150,000.

Oovaut said the NIC wrote to federal minister Denis Lebel, who is responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada, to plead for the restoration of the previous level of funding (more than $300,000) but hasn’t heard back.

“We expect to be shutting down in the near future,” Oovaut said.