A tripartite team consisting of the police, auditor general’s office and the revenue body is currently investigating the fraud to which a sum still could not be attached yesterday. The fraud was uncovered in the entity’s computer security system and is suspected to have been carried out by the cashiers in collusion with a member of the Information Technology staff.
GRA, in a statement on Wednesday, had said that the fraud was detected because there were proper functioning internal control systems in addition to meticulous work carried out by some staff members.
Sattaur said the committee was up to yesterday getting the relevant information together with respect to filing charges, adding that the persons involved could face the court soon. “We are compiling the necessary evidence, putting things together before the matter reaches the court and already some of those who are involved have been contacted and informed about the course of action we are taking,” Sattaur said. He added that one of the persons implicated in the fraud skipped the country last week, but he was optimistic that the investigators will eventually close in on the suspect.
The revenue chief said the fraud has raised critical questions about the conduct of “some of the people who work here.” He condemned the fraud and labelled it as disturbing while noting that there is a renewed focus on building a tamper-proof system. According to him, GRA has been preoccupied with “collecting the nation’s revenue” and did not pay enough attention to “what is happening inside.”
Sattaur highlighted the strength of the new information technology system at GRA saying that it was able to detect the fraud early. However, he said the mechanisms now in place are likely to prevent scams within the system.
In Wednesday’s statement Sattaur had said he was not ruling out linkages with pro-minent businesses, “because of the high prevalence of these businesses featuring in the information being provided by the system”. He reiterated calls for the business community to guard against the temptation of engaging in unscrupulous acts to defraud the state of revenue while at the same time compromising the integrity of officers within the GRA, the statement said.
