Government is awaiting the conclusion of a forensic audit before any further attention is paid to the persons who have been identified as having fraudulently accessed fuel from the Guyana Oil Company (GuyOil), Minister of State Joseph Harmon says.
“We will have to await the outcome of the forensic audit before we proceed to do anything more,” he told Stabroek News recently.
According to Harmon, the recently formed State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU) is working closely with the Ministry of Finance, where the audits are being done. On a regular basis, the unit is fed information and action is taken, he added.
In July, Harmon said five persons had been identified as having had unauthorised access to fuel and that they would be asked to pay for it.
“I would want to give those persons a first opportunity to pay for this fuel because we are talking about recovering state assets and we must pay for it. We would give that opportunity and then, if not, I would hand the file over to the police,” Harmon had told reporters.
Harmon has said that under the previous PPP/C administration vehicles not affiliated with any government ministry or agency had been accessing fuel at GuyOil without paying.
Harmon said roughly about $200,000 in fuel per vehicle was taken as there were vehicles drawing 20 gallons a day, not only in their tanks but also in containers.
Three ministries—the Minis-try of Home Affairs (now Public Security), the Ministry of Natural Resources (now a department of the Ministry of the Presidency) and the Ministry of Tourism—are being looked at.
Harmon told Stabroek News too that since the “exposé” a company embroiled in the scheme has vanished without a trace. “You can’t find a single soul. They (have) moved out from where they used to operate and everybody just vanish into thin air. I believe that the exposé would have sort of put a break on what has been happening because right now the ministries that actually collected gasoline from GuyOil, they are under a greater level of scrutiny and the ministers have all been told that they are to check these statements when they come to them on a monthly basis before any monies are paid to GuyOil for use of fuel,” he added.
According to Harmon, the feedback so far is that even the workers at GuyOil have become more vigilant, and even at the level of the pumps “people are very aware and they are looking at these things very carefully to make sure that when people say they are coming from a ministry for gasoline, they check number everything… some of them even make their own notations on these vehicles.”
“I think that we now have a more enlightened population as a result of the information which we give to them on a daily and on a weekly basis and this is how we hope to make us a more transparent society and so government and government officials are held to a higher level of accountability because people are watching,” he added.
