Even though there have been several published notices—one of which had indicated that it would have been working since early last month—it will be some weeks before the container scanner installed by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) will be up and running, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon has said.
Approached by this newspaper recently on the issue Dr Luncheon said that a report which was provided on May 4 by GRA indicated that the scanner “should be up and running by June” but no specific date was given.
The GRA had published several notices in all of the newspapers late last month and in one notice earlier in the month that was published in the Guyana Chronicle had said that the scanner would have been operational a few days later.
The agency had published notices informing exporters and shipping agents of the need for containers to be scanned before they depart local ports and the requirements for such.
Sources had told this newspaper that the scanner was still not up and running and that the agency was awaiting the US-based person who installed it to return to fix the problem.
According to one of the notices, the GRA informed exporters that containers leaving Guyana will be subject to inspection using the newly installed scanning terminal and all inspections will be done at the Guyana National Shipping Corporation (GNSC) wharf.
“The scanner will reduce the time taken to do an inspection since the process is non-intrusive and will ultimately increase efficiency. The scanner will also safeguard against revenue loss,” the notice said.
The fact that the container scanner was not working months after it was installed last year was brought to light following the discovery of a large quantity of cocaine in Jamaica on March 16.
Five bags of cocaine were found by Jamaican authorities last month in a container of logs on the MV Vega Azurit, which had left Guyana.
At a press conference last month, Dr Luncheon was critical about the fact that the scanner was not working. He had told reporters that when the manufacturer installed the scanner last year, it functioned but as soon as he “jumped on a plane and left” the scanner developed all sorts of problems and “was a scanner that was not scanning”. He had said that the investigation into the cocaine find in Jamaica would ascertain whether the non-functioning of the scanner was as a result of sabotage, while adding that this was an instance where monitoring and supervision came into play. “These kinds of issues we have to deal with and technological support must be provided to supervisors to assist them in supervising and monitoring,” Luncheon had said.
According to Luncheon, the biggest hurdle that needs to be overcome in the fight against drug trafficking is monitoring and supervision. He said that too often the work that is done fails to attract the right incisive supervision so people “get away with murder”.
It was only after the Jamaica bust that Commissioner-General of the GRA Khurshid Sattaur had related that the scanner was not working. It is believed that if the scanner was working the cocaine might have been detected.
Persons are yet to be charged in that bust, weeks after the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) completed its investigations. A source said that the file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), who had since instructed that some additional information be requested from the Jamaican authorities.
Luncheon told Stabroek News that the investigation by CANU has not been completed since who actually was responsible for placing the cocaine in the container is still being ascertained
He said while he had hoped for an immediate answer, cognisance must be taken of the fact that the investigation hinges on international collaboration and this often introduces delay.
“It is not an exclusively domestic investigation, the delay is the confirmation of the Jamaican investigation,” he told Stabroek News.
Sources at CANU told this newspaper earlier this year that the information requested from the Jamaican authorities, as directed by the office of the DPP, had not yet been made available.
The three persons who were arrested, including a Chinese national linked to a major restaurant, remain on bail.
