The Guyana Bar Association (GBA) and the Guyana Association of Women lawyers (GAWL) are both cautioning the government against any consideration of a recent call by local manufacturers to re-examine a recently brokered $1.2 billion settlement with Surinamese company RUDISA International.
The Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) last week appealed to government to re-examine the settlement and argued in a statement that RUDISA may owe the country much more in taxes based on admissions that were made before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
The settlement was reached on the CCJ’s award of US$7.72M in damages to the company over the imposition of a discriminatory environmental tax imposed by Guyana under the previous administration. The beverage company agreed to accept US$1.5M less after its principals met with President David Granger and State Minister Joseph Harmon.
In a joint statement, signed by GBA President Christopher Ram and GAWL President Sadie Amin, the lawyers’ associations yesterday noted that the decisions of the CCJ as constituted in the RUDISA case are final and not subject to appeal. “We therefore caution anyone against any suggestion that Guyana can consider itself free to “re-examine” decisions of the CCJ. That, we humbly suggest, could do serious harm to Guyana’s reputation for respect for the rule of law and as an investment destination,” it added.
Further, the associations said the GMSA statement was, at the lowest, “careless with the facts and disrespectful” of Guyana’s obligation to comply with a judgment of the region’s highest court.
“We have read the judgement handed down by the Court and are satisfied that the GMSA has misinformed itself of all the evidence… Its statement also suggests that the authors of the statement may not have read the judgement of the Court,” the lawyers’ associations said, before adding that the GMSA should take appropriate action on its public statement.
The GMSA had said that as the official business representative of private sector manufacturers in Guyana, it was appealing to the administration to re-examine the ruling by the CCJ and to apply the appropriate penalties ascribed by the Laws of Guyana for RUDISA’s admitted under-invoicing of exports to this country.
The statement said that the GMSA’s Board of Directors and some members viewed the entire video recording of the court proceedings and pointed out that under cross-examination by the then Attorney General of Guyana, the Chief Financial Officer of RUDISA admitted that the company has consistently under–invoiced their beverage exports to Guyana, but claimed ignorance that this action was an infringement of Guyana’s domestic Laws. “The lawyer representing RUDISA admitted to the Court that the E-tax of G$10 per bottle was actually passed on for several years to Guyanese distributors and consumers. This is a clear violation of the administrative protocols governing the procedures for implementing the E-Tax. One protocol stipulates that the Exporting Company (RUDISA in this case) should absorb the cost and not transmit it down the chain to consumers,” it pointed out.
The statement said during the proceedings at the CCJ in 2013/4, Guyana was unable to provide verifiable proof that RUDISA’s E-Tax was indeed passed on to Guyanese retailers and ultimately the consumers. “This unfortunately influenced the Court’s negative ruling. The end result is an agreement reached between RUDISA and the new Government of Guyana for a penalty payment which is only slightly lower than the costs recommended by the Caribbean Court,” the GMSA added.
