Guyana Revenue Authority Chairman, Rawle Lucas has reprimanded the Private Sector Commission (PSC) for erroneously stating that GRA employees had conducted a search and seizure of equipment at the premises of Commissioner-General Khurshid Sattaur.
In a statement today, Lucas said “It is important to emphasize that the GRA did not search or seize any property as maliciously claimed by the Private Sector Commission. While I agree that the protection of human rights is important, that concern did not apply to the case where GRA officials went to the home of Mr. Sattaur by mutual agreement on December 31, 2015 to retrieve the property of the Government of Guyana and to ensure that sensitive taxpayers’ data was properly secured”.
Lucas accused the PSC embellishing the erroneous information with the contention that Sattaur’s rights were infringed. Sattaur has been sent on leave by the GRA to facilitate a probe of the revenue body.
“The troubling feature of that erroneous claim is that the PSC seems to be seeking to drive fear and mistrust of GRA into the minds of taxpayers, the very things that the new Governing Board is seeking to heal in its relationship with taxpayers. That the PSC would take time to carefully construct unsubstantiated statements without seeking to find out the position of the GRA does not speak well for its own integrity and comes across as a deliberate attempt to malign and frustrate an organization that is trying to turn its tarnished image around”, Lucas stated.
He warned that the PSC “ought to be careful since continued distortion of facts would make it difficult for those who have to deal with it to rely on anything that it has to say.”
The PSC had said on Friday that its release was based on media reports.
