By Iana Seales
As the probe into fraudulent activities allegedly carried out by Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) employees with Fidelity Investment deepens, bombshell revelations about a scheme to smuggle polar beer into the country resulted in two custom officials being sent on leave yesterday while another two are being closely monitored.
The probe initiated by President Bharrat Jagdeo has reportedly cracked wide open the shady dealings of a few in the hierarchy of customs and has at the same time raised questions about a possible smuggling ring that has operated for sometime.
It is not clear however whether the current probe will go beyond the transactions between Fidelity and the GRA.
Sources confirmed yesterday that the two officials were issued letters sending them on leave after more than 24 hours of extensive questioning by members of the multi-sector investigating team set up by the President.
The team comprises a member of the GRA board; another from the Auditor General’s Office; a member of the Task Force on Smuggling and a Guyana Police Force rank.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that Jagdeo ordered an independent probe into the GRA’s dealings with Fidelity over the past few months after learning of the alleged involvement of the senior custom officials who were implicated by a key figure at Fidelity.
Information from sources reveal that a series of meetings was recently held between the GRA and a key Fidelity figure and that it was at the most recent meeting that Fidelity proposed a deal with the revenue body: Fidelity would reveal how 73,000 polar beers were cleared from the wharf without the requisite duties being paid but only in exchange for the charges instituted against the company being dropped.
Fidelity then fingered senior GRA officials by revealing how a customs broker who is currently in police custody was entrusted with $142M to get the shipment from the wharf. The man reportedly came up with a deal with customs to clear the polar beer under the category of ‘assorted soft drinks’, which draws less tax than the polar beers.
The sum of $32M was then paid to revenue body in taxes and another $70M was paid to a senior customs official who allowed the shipment to leave the wharf.
The official is also alleged to have facilitated documents being falsified for Fidelity. The rest of the money went to the broker.
But within days of the deal being struck, someone reported to a key GRA official that the beers had left the wharf without taxes being paid resulting in the GRA moving to seal off the Fidelity bond at Broad Street on January 16 this year. According to sources an investigation was launched but it was some of the same people who allegedly struck the deal who were placed on the GRA team to probe the Fidelity polar beer fraud.
The matter later ended up in court.
Sources say that after this information was recently related to the GRA the revenue body demanded credible evidence from Fidelity and also informed the President and the bribery probe was subsequently launched. Though the GRA could have initiated the probe on its own, too many senior officials were fingered for an internal investigation to be carried out, sources said.
The probe has rocked the GRA to its core according to sources given the persons fingered and as the investigation continues more persons at the revenue body who were working under those implicated are expected to be questioned.
Fidelity personnel are expected to fall under the microscope over the next few days as they have allegedly admitted bribing customs officials.
A string of legal matters are still before the courts involving Fidelity and GRA over the polar beer shipment.
