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annexes

sustainability assurance report

INDEPENDENT ASSURANCE REPORT TO CITIZENS DEVELOPMENT BUSINESS FINANCE PLC

Introduction

We were engaged by the Board of Directors of Citizens Development Business Finance PLC (‘Company’) to provide assurance on the following elements of the Sustainability Reporting incorporated in the Integrated Annual Report 2014 (“Report”) for the year ended
31 March 2014:

  • Reasonable assurance on Financial Highlights as reported on page 14 of this Report 2014.
  • Limited assurance on Non-Financial Highlights for 2014 as specified on page 15 and other information on pages 29 to 99 presented in this Report.

Managements’ responsibilities and the criteria applied

Management is responsible for the preparation and presentation of the Report in accordance with the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines as described in page 16 of the Report and the information and assertions contained within it: for determining the Company’s objectives in respect of sustainable development performance and reporting, including the identification of stakeholder and material issues, and for establishing and maintaining appropriate performance management and internal control systems from which the reported performance information is derived.

Our responsibilities and compliance with SLSAE 3000

Our responsibility is to carry out a reasonable & limited assurance engagement and to express a conclusion based on the work performed. We conducted our engagement in accordance with the Sri Lanka Standard on Assurance Engagements 3000: Assurance Engagements Other Than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information, issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka.

This Standard requires amongst others that we comply with applicable ethical requirements, including independence requirements, and plan and perform the engagement to obtain reasonable & limited assurance about whether the Report is free of material misstatement.

Summary of work performed

Financial data

A reasonable assurance engagement on financial highlights reported on pages 14 of the Report involves verification that they were properly derived from the audited financial statements of the Company for the year ended March 31, 2014.

Performance Indicators and Other Information

A limited assurance engagement on performance indicators and other information in the Report consists of making inquiries, primarily of persons responsible for the preparation of information presented in the sustainability report, and applying analytical and other evidence gathering procedures, as appropriate. These procedures included:

  • Inquiries of management to gain an understanding of the Company’s processes for determining the material issues for the Company’s key stakeholder groups.
  • Interviews with senior management and relevant staff at group level and selected business unit level concerning sustainability strategy and policies for material issues, and the implementation of these across the business.
  • Interviews with relevant staff at corporate and business unit level responsible for providing the information in the Report.
  • Inquiries about the design and implementation of the systems and methods used to collect and process the information reported, including the aggregation of data into information as presented in the Report.
  • Comparing the information presented in the Report to corresponding information in the relevant underlying sources to determine whether all the relevant information contained in such underlying sources has been included in the Report.
  • Reading the information presented in the Report to determine whether it is in line with our overall knowledge of, and experience with, the sustainability performance of the Company.

Our conclusion

Based on the procedures performed, as described above, we conclude that:
  • The data on financial highlights, as reported on page 14 of the Report 2014 are properly derived from the financial statements of the Company for the year ended March 31, 2014 for which the independent auditors have issued an unqualified audit opinion dated June 2, 2014 on page 169 of this Report;
  • Nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the non-financial highlights specified on page 15 and other information presented on pages 29 to 100 in the Report are not fairly presented, in all material respects, in accordance with the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines as described in pages 16 of the Report.



CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS

Colombo
2nd June 2014