- Chartered Accountant Nizam Ali is a ‘Special Person’
“In the early ‘90s, I was told that the market was saturated and it would have been difficult for a new audit firm to succeed. Things proved otherwise.”
By Leonard Gildarie
For centuries, history has focused mostly on the leaders of the times. In so doing, sometimes scant attention has been paid to the contributions of others. There has, of course, been criticism that because of this, history may in many cases have been skewed.
But though they stayed largely in the shadows, these “others” remained the wind beneath the wings, playing critical roles.
And so it may have been with Nizam Ali, one of Guyana’s foremost Chartered Accountants, whose experiences have helped to lift an area that has remained largely behind the scenes, but which is so pertinent in the business world.
Nizam Ali
Despite retiring last year, the father of three is not being allowed to walk away, and because of his experience and knowledge, has now been called up to serve as a Commissioner of the Guyana Competition and Consumer Affairs Commission, a body established to monitor and protect the interests of consumers.
Nizam was keen to acknowledge that his family has other outstanding personalities. His eldest brother, Emran, an orthopedic surgeon, was also the Chief Surgeon of what has now become the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. One of his three sisters, Rabbian Ali-Khan, was a Director of Guyana Stores Limited and later a Minister of the Government. Another of his brothers was a senior accountant in the Bookers Group of Companies, former owners of the Guyana Sugar Corporation. Still another brother was a qualified statistician with Government and later with the Commonwealth Secretariat.
Nizam Ali was born in Ogle, on the East Coast of Demerara, in the days when Guyana was still a colony of Britain. His father, who owned a small rice mill not far away, later moved with the family to Plaisance, where he opened a shop.
In 1956, while young Nizam was attending St. John’s Roman Catholic School, located in the village, tragedy struck the family. His 18-year-old brother was with his parents in a car when it collided with a fire engine. All three occupants of the car were badly injured. His sibling succumbed two days later and his mother was brought out from the hospital for the funeral. His father remained in serious condition.
The incident stuck in the mind of Nizam as at just 15 years, he was forced to take a year from high school to run the family business.
He managed to return to school a year later, and completed his Cambridge exams, with very commendable grades and when it was time to work, he obtained a job in the civil service as an auditor in the then Government Audit Department.
The young Ali was not an ordinary auditor. In one of his early outings, auditing the Public Works Department, he observed some unusual payments. He discovered that a change in the approach in which payments to contractors were being audited would shed a little more light on his suspicions. The findings of the query were so startling that it was included in the Director’s annual report, no mean feat for a junior auditor.
Nizam (at far left), and his wife Meeroon, with their children and grandchildren.
He was summoned to the Director of Audit, David Wallace Dunlop, who happened to be an Englishman and who would not normally be requesting to see a junior in his office.
Dunlop was curious and surprised at the youth of Nizam.
“He asked me my plans for the future and in congratulating me, also urged me to go to London to get qualified. I told him it was difficult as the cost was prohibitive.”
The Englishman, taking a liking of the youthful Ali, promised to do what he could. A letter was written to the local authorities asking for a scholarship to pursue accountancy studies in London. However, three weeks later, the local offices sent back some less than encouraging news.
“There were no scholarships being offered for accountancy. They were more interested back then in medicine, engineering and law,” Nizam relected.
Not fazed, he spent a few years studying and working, and in 1962, Dunlop arranged that he receive his six months vacation, due every four years, early than usual.
Arrangements were also made for him to travel to London to attend a college and for him to be paid from the Crown Agents in London.
For four years, working and receiving support from his parents in Guyana, Nizam slugged it out and in 1966, he was successful in two professional exams – the Chartered Institute of Taxation and the Association of Certified and Corporate Accountants. “There are not many persons around in Guyana that have both certificates,” a modest Ali expressed thoughtfully.
It was just before his planned return in 1967 to Guyana that Nizam met the lovely Meeroon (with whom he would later tie the knot). She was training to be a nurse in England, but was willing to give it all up and come back with Nizam to Guyana.
On his way back home after his studies in 1967, he was invited for a job interview by the prestigious international firm of chartered accountants, Touche Ross, which had offices in Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados, and was in the process of establishing one in Guyana. In Barbados, the firm was impressed with the credentials of the young accountant and immediately offered him a position in which he would be trained to take over the Guyana office.
Nizam Ali (centre) and his KPMG colleagues in Barbados, shortly before he returned to Guyana.
Two weeks later, after his wedding in Guyana, Nizam was winging out to Barbados.
As Touche Ross experienced more of his potential, he was later shifted to Jamaica, where his two older children, a daughter, Nazima, and a son, Feisal, were born. While there, an Englishman who was managing the Guyana practice, signaled his intentions to return to London. Nizam was the automatic choice to succeed him.
The accountant had a busy life in Jamaica. He was working full-time and lecturing five nights every week at the College of Arts, Science and Technology. However, the business climate was not conducive for the continued presence in Guyana of one of world’s leading professional services firms. They pulled out, and Nizam was quickly snapped up by Sandbach Parker, a huge conglomerate operating at the time at the now Muneshwers property on Water Street.
He succeeded the prominent accountant, Dr. Yesu Persaud, as the Chief Accountant. Persaud at the time was being promoted to Finance Director. Recognizing that the company was downsizing, Nizam, then 32 years old, accepted a position as a manager with the leading accounting firm in Guyana, Pannell Fitzpatrick. A significant portion of the firm’s business came from sugar giant, Bookers.
One year later, he became the first non-white partner, and had “stepped into the league with the big boys”.
“My income significantly increased.”
Some prominent accountants today were also attached to the firm at that time, including Noel Narine, Christopher Ram, Glen Khan, Ramesh Lall and Bert Sukhai.
But bad news struck again. In 1976, the then Prime Minister, Forbes Burnham, decided to nationalize the sugar industry. It would prove to be a big blow to the audit firm. Burnham was not interested in retaining its services, and the demise of Pannell Fitzpatrick was swift.
Nizam, a partner in the firm, was summoned before the Prime Minister who wanted him to work in another existing firm. However, he declined and instead migrated to Canada, where his third child, a son, Asif, was born, and where he was fortunate to obtain a job with the largest provincial government corporation as a senior contract auditor. But the cold was brutal.
“I just could not get accustomed to it and the kids too had a hard time.”
He yearned to return to the Caribbean.
Our ‘Special Person’ and his charming spouse, relaxing and reminiscing.
Because of his earlier connections, he took up a position in Barbados with another of the world’s leading prestigious firms, KPMG, and very quickly was elevated to a partner.
It was back in 1993 that KPMG decided that it would be opening up an office in Guyana. It sent Nizam.
His presence was welcomed. Several companies, including two banks and the Guyana Lottery Company, quickly came on board as clients. His reputation as a serious auditor had preceded him.
He was welcomed by the then Finance Minister Asgar Ally, who opined that KPMG’s entry to Guyana would spell good things for accountability in the country.
In 2001, KPMG, as one of the big four in audit companies around the world, decided to scale back operations in Guyana. They were more than willing to sell him the practice, retaining him as a correspondent firm.
Nizam Ali and Company has now grown, acquiring a significant number of clients along the way. And of course, its head is extremely proud of the growth of his firm.
“In the early ‘90s, I was told that the market was saturated and it would have been difficult for a new audit firm to succeed. Things proved otherwise.”
Government has been turning to Nizam for advice from time to time. He was hired to help in the Guyana Stores Limited privatization, and about a decade ago, when Globe Trust and Investment Company Limited fell into financial problems, he was appointed by the Governor of the Bank of Guyana to oversee the liquidation.
He is also heavily involved in a number of charities and spends a lot of time with his wife and family. He is a big fan of his wife’s radio programme, Sunday’s Choice, on NCN’s Voice of Guyana.
Kaieteur News pays tribute to Nizam Ali for his contributions to auditing in Guyana and the world at large.