They knew themselves that they were overvalued, and we had warned them too, in 1994 and earlier. Unfortunately, the political atmosphere was such that it was not possible to act on our warnings. According to the Prime Minister, reporting a more realistic value would reveal high hidden unemployment in that company. The auditing report, which is not confidential, says that INA has over nine thousand surplus employees. These nine thousand workers have to be paid, and that is a cost, which constitutes a loss which is direct and visible, now that assets have been realistically valued.
Nobody likes audits much, because everything comes to light.
On the other hand, managements must be sure about the truth of the documents they are about to sign, and they can be sure only if somebody verifies and confirms the reliability of the data. A high-quality internal audit is one of the conditions for a company to be admitted to the world stock market. The existence of such an audit must be confirmed by an independent external institution. Four months ago, Jadrolinija also found a good auditor. Such an attitude to data on which all financial statements are based cannot be without its consequences.