Head of the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU) Dr Clive Thomas has shrugged off criticisms by the opposition PPP and says the unit wants the authority to be able to order a freeze in assets where necessary.
He told Stabroek News on Sunday that SARU functions within the law and has powers designated under the Ministry of the Presidency.
He said that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is free to pursue any actions in the courts should the opposition feel the need to do so.
“Whatever they are saying if they think they are right they can contest anything in the courts… These are matters for the courts to decide,” he said.
Thomas said that SARU is a unit not an agency and as such its functions are appropriate given that it operates within the Ministry of the Presidency in the investigation and collection of information.
He noted that SARU is pursuing agency status and highlighted that he has spoken of the lack of the requisite legislation in the past. Previously, Thomas had stated that government is expected to formulate a State Assets Recovery law that is legally sound and which will govern the protocols of the unit by the end of the year.
According to Thomas, the areas he is looking to have addressed rely heavily on the unit being legally empowered to freeze assets domestically and request foreign financial institutions to do so while investigations are ongoing into the propriety of said assets.
“What we want to do is to give an order to freeze those assets to conclude our investigation so based on that order we would ask the foreign jurisdictions to freeze the assets for us,” he said.
He noted that if the earnings and salary of an individual were known but the person was acquiring cash and assets that far outstrip the probability of their earnings, the unit can move in.
At that point, the individual could come forward and either “own up to it or try to negotiate a settlement,” the SARU head said.
He told Stabroek News that much like anti-money laundering legislation, state assets recovery legislation would not empower a judge to convict a person per se but instead to distinguish that there was cause for investigation and until that was completed, assets would remain frozen. Another level of prosecution according to Thomas, would be to report discrepancies to the Guyana Revenue Authority.
He said of his work as the head of SARU, “I am certainly not engaged in any illegal ventures… that infringe on the law.”
Thomas said that the unit was well within the framework of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption of which Guyana is a signatory. He told Stabroek News, “We are not acting against the convention. It is there in print.”
The PPP has heavily criticized the unit stating that to date the staff and the Terms of Reference remain unknown to the public.
In a statement issued last week the party said “SARU’s objectives are clearly political and aimed proving the APNU/AFC, Stabroek and Kaieteur news correct as regards front page stories they carried in the past, and continue to carry, alleging wrong-doings by the PPP/C administration while in office.”
“All the investigations currently being pursued by the Office of the President outfit are partisan by nature, and are part and parcel of the APNU+AFC witch-hunting programme,” the party continued.
The party’s statements come after the independent dailies had carried multiple stories on the unit’s report which recommends that former ministers of the PPP/C government who accessed property in the controversial Pradoville 2 scheme should be liable for misconduct in office.
The report has since been sent to the Chambers of the Attorney General.
