The PNCR is calling on the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to take stock of businesses believed to be sustained by the drug industry and to urgently undertake audits of such businesses in the public’s interest.
Reading from a prepared text, PNCR Central Executive Committee member Lance Carberry said it appears that everyone, except GRA Commissioner-General Khurshid Sattaur and the government, knows that many businesses in Guyana are being sustained by the drug industry. He urged the Commissioner-General to take stock of the situation.
The party said there was a “mountain of evidence that enormous amounts of drug money are sloshing through the economy and sustaining enterprises spawned by organised crime” and that if Sattaur took his duties seriously, “he would begin the audit of all businesses suspected of being involved in, or funded by the proceeds of drug trafficking.” An audit of such businesses would be a major step in the fight against drugs and would contribute to removing the public perception that the Jagdeo-led administration was ambivalent about confronting certain businesses and individuals long-suspected of being involved in the international narco-trafficking, the party said.
The PNCR said the Commissioner-General should be bolstered by the “existing plethora of anti-money laundering and anti-narcotics legislation ritually rushed through the National Assembly” but remaining dormant. It also said that it was true that the rhetoric and propaganda, which surrounded the launching of the National Drug Strategy, like many similar initiatives, have not been matched by any visible action against any of the known and prominent drug barons “who have brazenly been flaunting their ill begotten riches for all” to see.
