GRA prosecutor surprised, seeks explanation
Director of Public Prosecu-tions, Shalimar Ali-Hack has discontinued eleven tax evasion charges against beverage company Kong Inc, and Joshua Safeek of Fidelity Investments, clearing them both of complaints that triggered a huge probe into underhand activities at customs and a raft of charges against GRA employees last week.
Safeek, who has been embroiled in a polar beer tax evasion scam, has also been cleared of charges that he allegedly produced falsified documents to customs while acting as an officer of Fidelity Investments.
The DPP, who has been unavailable for comment to this newspaper for months on this and other cases, entered nolle prosequi (discontinued prosecution) in letters written to acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson-Ogle and dated April 16, 2009. The letters were also copied to Fidelity head Safeek.
The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) had slapped Safeek with the eleven charges and one of his subsidiaries Kong Inc. with in a joint indictment in relation to a quantity of allegedly uncustomed polar beer it says was imported into Guyana by Safeek’s company.
Each charge had related to a specific quantity of polar beer and the total quantity amounted to 195,932 cases of Polar beverages. The GRA had estimated the alleged evasion of duties and taxes to be in excess of 300 million dollars.
Subsequent to the charges being laid, President Bharrat Jagdeo had initiated an independent probe to investigate alleged bribery activities at the Customs and Trade Administration (CTA) since Fidelity was alleged to have bribed customs officials to clear a polar beer shipment that came into the country.
Fifteen persons have since been charged based on recommendations from the probe, but the task force conducting the investigations had also recommended that a new charge be laid against Fidelity for false documents it said the company had submitted to the team. No such charge was laid.
Attorney-at-law and GRA prosecutor Gino Persaud, who was appearing in the matters involving Safeek, expressed surprise at the prosecutions being dropped when contacted last night saying that he was completely taken aback on Friday last when the information was relayed to him on a second-hand basis.
The attorney told Stabroek News he was informed of the nolle prosequi by GRA Com-missioner General, Khurshid Sattaur, who “was also surprised by the decision”. Persaud said that he unaware of the DPP’s decision while pointing out that none of the letters was copied to him. However, he added that the letters were eventually passed onto him on Tuesday.
“I am unaware of the basis on which these charges were dropped, the DPP should be asked to provide a reason for discontinuing the charges”, Persaud stated.
He told Stabroek News that while the charges were read to the defendants and they had pleaded, the trial failed to get off the ground because of the task force probe. Persaud explained that he was asked to submit the information he had to the Auditor-General led task force set up by President Jagdeo, which resulted in the matters in court being put off. He noted that boxes of information which were submitted are yet to be returned.
The attorney recalled that the charges were called last on April 3 this year and were put down sine die [indefinitely] because the task force had been reconstituted again to complete a second report. Persaud pointed out that there had been no indications of the matters being dropped at that time.
Subsequent to the recent court hearing, he discovered that the DPP had discontinued the matters. The attorney said he was not informed at the time, “neither was GRA because Mr. Sattaur only found out last week”.
“This has come as a surprise”, Persaud reiterated.
Fidelity has been entangled with customs since January 2008 when GRA raided a Bond owned by the company at 20 Broad and Charles streets, Charlestown and seized some 73,383 cases of Polar beverages it alleged was smuggled into Guyana. The company at the time of seizure was allegedly unable to prove that the goods were lawfully imported by providing duty slips or receipts to show that all taxes and duties were paid.
Fidelity Investments later said that it was not the importer of the polar beverages but had purchased them from a company called Kong Inc. and supplied receipts attempting to prove this.
Subsequent to this, GRA charged Safeek and Kong Inc. for tax evasion. Safeek was later slapped with additional charges for allegedly producing falsified documents to the customs.
According to reports, GRA had barred Fidelity from clearing a shipment of polar beer after it detected that the company received a low valuation on the shipment from custom officials. It is alleged that Fidelity had false documents drawn up in its declarations to the revenue body for the shipment which declared the rate of the shipment below the real rate.
