Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson today announced that he has sent the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Administration) of the Guyana Power & Light on leave after it was discovered that he paid himself some $27 million of the company’s money.
Aeshwar Deonarine, who has not been at work since Monday, managed to transfer the large sum of money into his account with the assistance of labour leader Carvil Duncan, who is a director on GPL’s board and who also paid himself $900,000.
The information has since been forwarded to the Guyana Police Force and an investigation is expected to be initiated.
The minister, speaking to reporters this morning at the post-Cabinet press briefing, said because the two are the signatories on the bank account they managed to make the transfers in April, May and June of this year and the transactions were discovered during the ongoing forensic audit of the power company.
Deonarine reportedly paid himself what he believes to be owed to him retroactively since he was not being paid the same salary as another senior manager of the company who is in charge of operations. He had repeatedly applied to the board for the disparity to be rectified but was not successful. Duncan also paid himself retroactively for 48 months since the company’s board members had requested that their allowance be increased from $5,000 to $20,000 but no approval had been given.
The two paid themselves from the monies transferred from the PetroCaribe Fund to the power company by the past administration.