City Treasurer Andrew Meredith is maintaining his innocence as a commission of inquiry into an allegation of extortion of a private citizen made against him continues.
Attorney-at-law Rexford Jackson speaking for Meredith said, “My client denies the allegation in its entirety. My client is eager to have his name cleared and we’re confident he will be vindicated in the process.”
Two weeks ago, Meredith was asked to take his annual leave to facilitate an investigation after an allegation was made against him. It is alleged that Meredith tried to extort money from an RRT Enterprise debt collector.
The letter asking him to proceed on leave was sent from the office of Local Government Minister Kellawan Lall and the investigation is being conducted by the Permanent Secretary of that ministry and Keith Burrowes, chairman of the 2009 Commission of Enquiry into the operations of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC).
Meanwhile, Mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green is calling for a complete investigation into the matter. This newspaper learnt that the allegation of extortion involved payment for a truck the M&CC had purchased from RRT Enterprise.
After Meredith was sent home, the M&CC expressed outrage over the fact that it was passed over in the investigation process. “We should do the investigation when we go through the process, then we inform the higher sources,” A Good and Green Guyana (AGGG) Councillor Gwendoline Mc Gowan declared at last week’s statutory meeting.
Her call was supported by the majority of the councillors. At the same time the councillors expressed the need for a wider investigation since the purchase of the said vehicle was questionable. Last week, Councillor Junior Garrett questioned the tender process for the purchase of the truck. “It seems to me that the process was mired in a fraudulent environment,” Garrett said.
The councillors’ unease had prompted the mayor to dispatch a letter to Lall, expressing the council’s “concerns he has not engaged the M&CC in this matter and that beyond that we are asking for a complete investigation of this transaction”.
Attempts to determine the progress of the investigation have been unsuccessful.
