-says plea bargaining mustn’t be used as political tool
Calling the dropping of charges against Fidelity Investments shocking, the PNCR yesterday said it is clear that smuggling of polar beer took place.
According to the party, the Fidelity Investment polar beer scam was handled badly by the administration as it “misuses the power of the state to punish its opponents and protect its political friends and supporters”.
The party was critical of the proposed plea bargaining deal that was reportedly struck between the state and an accused in the polar beer scam.
“Plea bargaining, in democratic societies, is used to get at the big corrupt fishes with the aim of dismantling criminal enterprises. In the case of the Jagdeo regime, it is being used as a political tool to achieve narrow partisan political objectives,” the party stated.
The PNCR said that all alert Guyana must be shocked to hear that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has withdrawn charges against the Director of Fidelity while proceeding to prosecute the Customs officers and brokers.
The DPP has not spoken publicly on why the charges against Fidelity were discontinued.
“The PNCR is not deceived, since we are aware that Fidelity is … controlled by PPP big wigs, some of whom are former Ministers of Government. It is now evident that the whole charade of an investigation was to enable the Administration to target the customs officers that they want to get rid of”, the main opposition party said in a statement.
The party questioned how no senior customs official at the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) is implicated in this scam, and pointed to what it described as the junior staff being targeted.
According to the party, the GRA is micro-managed when it comes to the clearance of cargo and that there are those who are involved in corrupt transactions. The PNCR alluded to an unspoken rule that customs officers are expected to turn a blind eye to administration-linked corruption while going after the ordinary citizen. The party said too, that “not surprisingly, this is what is undermining revenue collection at the GRA”.
Further, the party pointed to a Stabroek News article published on May 4 that reported the contents of a GRA-led investigation into the polar beer scam, noting that it had been established that customs officers had raided Fidelity and found in excess of 73,000 cases of polar beer for which no import documents could be produced.
The party highlighted also, the claims by Fidelity that the broker had substituted invoices for polar beer with invoices for mixed flavours of aerated beverages – the duty rate being vastly different for the two. The party said too, that the GRA statement made it clear that beers were smuggled into the country.
“If we take the GRA utterances that the beers were smuggled via trawlers and discharged at the Parika landing, then the President and the DPP must tell the Guyanese people how, in this plea bargaining, the Fidelity accused will give evidence against himself for the alleged smuggled beer.
Or is the government turning a blind eye to its own pronouncements?” the party asked rhetorically.
To get to the bottom of the alleged crime, the party suggested that those accused of the smuggling and robbing the state of revenue be placed before the courts. However, the party said that it is not convinced that this will happen.
“We wish to state that, while plea bargaining is a useful element of the justice system, it would be disastrous if it is used in a partisan political manner and would defeat the purpose for which it is intended.”
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Shalimar Ali-Hack discontinued eleven tax evasion charges against beverage company Kong Inc, and Joshua Safeek of Fidelity Investments, clearing them both of complaints that triggered the huge probe into underhand activities at customs and charges being instituted against GRA employees.
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.
