Within another few days the bribery probe into reported shady dealings at the Customs and Trade Administration (CTA) will wrap up in relation to seventeen employees currently on leave, including a few high ranking officials of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).
After weeks of interrogation and reporting to the police weekly the employees will know who will be reinstated and who will be cut loose from the revenue body. It is also likely that a few could be handed over to the police for prosecution.
Sources revealed that the probe recently extended to the home of a customs officer where a massive search was executed. The officer is still on the job but has joined the ranks of those regularly interrogated.
Stabroek News was also reliably informed that one official in the upper echelons of customs who was sent on leave, recently received a formal letter indicating that he would be on indefinite leave to facilitate the probe.
According to sources, many employees on leave have maintained they had nothing to do with the fraud and are hoping to be reinstated.
“Many people just want to go back to work and get this thing behind them, they don’t want to remember it at all,” a source said.
With respect to the revenue body and the extent of its involvement in the probe, a source said that two GRA officials are usually present during questioning to assist the team in understanding what the exact duties of some officers are in addition to other technical areas, but are not part of the investigating team.
Last month the GRA probe rocked customs after revelations were made about the alleged involvement of several officers in facilitating the clearing of a shipment of Polar beer into the country without the necessary duties being paid.
A key figure from Fidelity Investment which imported the beer fingered top GRA officials in the scandal, revealing how the company had entrusted a customs broker with $142 million to get the shipment from the wharf. The man reportedly came up with a deal with the CTA to clear the Polar beer under the category of ‘assorted soft drinks’, which draws less tax than beer.
The sum of $32 million was then paid to the revenue body in taxes and another $70 million was paid to a top customs official who allowed the shipment to leave the wharf and who allegedly facilitated documents being falsified for Fidelity.
Fidelity’s involvement in the scam has been repeatedly raised with critics saying that the company needs to answer for the role it played.
