Ryerson Student Union found to have spent almost $700K on questionable items

The saga of Ryerson's student union president and his wild, seemingly inexplicable credit card spending continues this week after it was revealed that he allegedly frittered more than double the amount of money initially estimated.

Ram Ganesh and his four-person executive team were accused late last month of spending some $250,000 in student fees at local nightclubs, hookah lounges, restaurants, clothing stores and the LCBO.

Students learned during an emergency RSU board meeting on Friday that the expenses, which have yet to be sufficiently explained, were actually found to have totalled almost $700,000.

It was during this meeting that the board of directors approved a full forensic audit of the student union's "questionable spending" over the past nine months, specifically into purchases made with the RSU's credit card by Ganesh and VP of operations Savreen Gosal.

Campus newspaper The Eyeopener reports that PricewaterhouseCoopers will conduct the audit, and that a director from the university's faculty of community services hopes the audit will "satisfy some of the students' wishes that a criminal investigation takes place."

The student lineup to get into the emergency board of directors meeting tonight. @theeyeopener pic.twitter.com/f7mavnhq4X

— Raneem / رنيم (@r_alozzi) February 1, 2019

Financial controller Dharshini Jay confirmed on Friday that the executive team had charged $273,000 to student union credit cards between May 1, when they came into office, and February 1.

Another $415,000, which the union spent on a January 19 concert featuring Tory Lanez at Rebel Nightclub, is similarly under review.

Jay, a professional chartered accountant, says she was told the organization would get back some $350,000 in sponsorship dollars as well as up to $60,000 in ticket sales. Neither amount materialized.

RSU financial controller Dharshini Jay said there was a change on the third-party company name the RSU hired for LoudFest... because their website was hacked. pic.twitter.com/JZKcbUjljL

— Denise Paglinawan (@denpaglinawan) February 2, 2019

Ganesh himself did not attend Friday's emergency board meeting out of concern for his own safety, according to his lawyers, nor did VP of education Salman Faruqi, who resigned on Wednesday.

A motion to remove all four of the remaining executives from office is expected to be brought forward during another meeting on Monday afternoon.