Former City of Nanaimo CFO Victor Mema has been sanctioned by the Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta for misconduct while working in Nanaimo and Sechelt. (City of Nanaimo)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

fined

Former Nanaimo CFO ordered to pay fine, loses professional designation

Mar 13, 2024 | 11:37 AM

NANAIMO — Improper use of a corporate credit card and failure to pay back the amounts in a timely fashion have cost a former high-ranking City employee.

A tribunal of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta ruled on March 5, former City of Nanaimo chief financial officer Victor Mema must pay $30,000 in fines and have his registration with the organization cancelled after being found “guilty of unprofessional conduct”.

The group found Mema “failed to act with integrity and due care” while chief financial officer with the City of Nanaimo, including using his corporate credit card for $14,148.97 in personal expenses.

Mema was found to have failed to “promptly reimburse” the City for the expenses after the City requested repayment.

Among the charges made to the card was a substantial amount from a Mexican resort.

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The City terminated Mema in the spring of 2018, in part due to the length and repeated use of his corporate credit card.

Similar findings by the Tribunal were made against Mema when he filled a similar role with the District of Sechelt between May 2012 and August 2015.

Mema charged $7,743.29 in personal expenses to his District-managed credit card, while also failing to submit “on a timely basis” monthly credit card statements for 11 months between April 2014 and August 2015.

The fine includes payment of a portion of the costs incurred for the complaint against him as well as the subsequent investigation.

Mema was awarded over $640,000 in 2023 from the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, after it said the City was “discriminatory” in its decision to fire him.

A majority of the amount potentially owed by the City stems from lost wages.

The City of Nanaimo, in response to the ruling, said they were seeking a judicial review of the decision and the matter remains before the courts.

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