President Bharrat Jagdeo has set up a multi-sector team to investigate allegations about fraudulent activities that were allegedly carried out by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Fidelity Invest-ment according to a statement from the revenue body last evening.
Sources yesterday confirmed that a number of senior customs officials from several divisions were taken down to Police Headquarters, Eve Leary where they were questioned on allegations connected to bribery amounting to millions. They were still in custody up to press time last night.
The GRA statement said the report to the President said that a number of officers of the GRA had colluded with Fidelity and agents attached to the company to defraud the government of a significant amount of revenues.
Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur said in the statement that due to the nature of the investigation being conducted the GRA would not be in a position to make further comments on the matter until the investigation is complete.
The GRA and Fidelity have clashed at the company’s premises and in the courts recently over shipments of allegedly illicit Polar beer.
Meanwhile, sources told Stabroek News yesterday that police arrested a customs broker attached to Fidelity Investment in a probe to determine what happened to duties the company reportedly entrusted him with to pay to the GRA.
The man was taken into custody on Monday after it was alleged that he failed to pay over $150M to the GRA for the shipment of polar beer that is now at the centre of a legal battle between the revenue body and the company. The man is said to be among several persons questioned but he is the only one that still remains in custody.
A source close to the man told this newspaper that a top Fidelity Investment official contacted an official at GRA and made the allegation. Khan was called in for a meeting at GRA and later rushed to a meeting with a high ranking government official. He was arrested following that meeting.
According to the source, the broker has since professed no knowledge of being entrusted with any such transaction for Fidelity Invest-ment. The man has said however that he was asked to clear a shipment of soft drinks from the wharf for Fidelity’s sister company Kong Inc. which he did.
Documents bearing the broker’s signatures are also said to have been forged in an attempt to defraud the GRA of taxes but the source said VAT was remitted from the documents in question and that Fidelity has had the documents in their possession for sometime now, as did the GRA. The broker’s story is thought to have triggered revelations about the bribery of Customs officials.
It was only last week that Fidelity and the GRA came to an accommodation following months of legal battles over the polar beer that the GRA said was imported illegally. Information forthcoming then said that Fidelity had paid out $75M to the GRA to remove stocks from its bond that were nearing the expiration date.
A string of legal matters are still before the courts involving Fidelity and the GRA over the polar beer shipment. Fidelity has long been arguing that its taxes were paid up while the revenue body said duties on that particular shipment of beers were not paid.
