Ann: Suspension from Official Quotation, page-43

Even accountants make mistakes. I remember when I was assistant project manager for a science centre through its construction and opening phase. It was at a major planning meeting that allocated funds for the various sub-projects and exhibits under construction, that the accountant stood up to talk through how our budget for the coming year would go into paying for the time and wages of our roughly 50 staff. At one point, as he went through the timing of the various funding grants on which our spend depended, he was outlining our biggest grant when he stopped mid sentence, shuffled his notes back and forth and turned deathly white. He realised at that moment, for the first time, that the final budget had effectively counted the same grant twice during the year. The funding had been applied for twice and the first application had been rejected. He had reapplied for it and been successful. Only the second - for half the value - had been accepted, but both sums had been carried forward as won. As a result we were around a million short, and our available budget for the year had been reduced from covering the year easily to not even covering the first quarter. Within a month the centre laid off most of its staff bar a handful of caretakers.

This week in the news in NZ the NZ National Party came out with a rival budget spending program that did something very similar, and they were only a mere $4B out, to their great embarrassment!

As I said in an earlier post: sh!t happens, and it's not necessarily malevolence or dishonesty that is behind it. People do make mistakes.

So let's see what the auditors actually turn up before we start swinging the nooses around and asking for heads to roll.
And before anyone asks, yes: if PET is in trouble it is going to cost me personally, to the tune of around 10% of my retirement portfolio, and I am already retired so it really does matter.