The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has fired an employee of its Licence Revenue Department after it was discovered that she fraudulently facilitated the issuance of an undisclosed amount of driver’s licences.
A release from the GRA today said that the employee responsible for the acts along with the person (s) who solicited the commission of the various offences are now likely to face criminal charges as the GRA has handed the matter over to the Guyana Police Force for further investigation.
The GRA said “Following a thorough investigation by the Authority, it was revealed that over a period of several months, the staffer facilitated the issuance of a number of bogus new and duplicate Driver’s Licences to drivers and received monies in return.
“The employee, a Clerk 1, confessed her involvement in the matter which was committed between August 2012 and February 2013. She admitted to receiving sums for monies for processing a number of drivers’ licences.”
The GRA said that the fraudulent acts are a breach of the GRA’s Code of Conduct of ‘failure to obey known rules’.
According to the GRA, during the internal investigation it was revealed that bogus Certificates of Competence Numbers were inputted into GRA’s internal system by the employee in committing the fraud. The revenue body noted that a Certificate of Competence issued by the Guyana Police Force is one of the major documents required to be supplied to the GRA by the potential driver when seeking a new driver’s licence.
The GRA said that “The Agency is reiterating its call to the general public to refrain from illegal business activities through the offering of inducement to its officers, since such activities will, at some time or the other, be detected and have serious consequences for the sundry parties involved.
“It must be noted that while efforts continue to be made to ‘root out’ any corruption that may be taking place in any section of GRA’s Departments, taxpayers need to report any form of solicitation of monies by employees in exchange for legitimate duties the employees are paid to carry out. This type of behaviour results in fraud, forgery and other illegalities.”
According to Commissioner-General Khurshid Sattaur, “Our integrity must never come under scrutiny. Rogue officers will be dealt with in a condign manner”.
Persons with information regarding acts of wrong-doing can contact the
Agency’s Intelligence Division on telephone #s 227-6060 or 227-8222, the GRA said.
