Former Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and current PPP/C Members of Parliament Gail Teixeira, Irfaan Ali and Nigel Dharamlall have been questioned by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) in relation to the findings of the forensic audit into government’s holding company NICIL.
Opposition Chief Whip, Teixeira speaking at a press conference at Freedom House yesterday, said she and the other three party members were notified that they were needed for questioning by inspectors who showed up at their homes without any previous notification.
Ali, minister of housing and commerce under the former PPP/C government was the first to be questioned on January 6. He was followed by Dharamlall, a permanent secretary under the former PPP/C government and Teixeira, a former presidential adviser who were called in for Monday, and Hinds who went in yesterday.
“We are convinced that the government is using the coercive arms of the State to threaten and intimidate PPP/C Members of Parliament but it is not succeeding and we wish to thank civil society and citizens of Guyana who are being vocal in their concerns of these developments that are taking place with regard to the treatment of Members of the Parliament of the People’s Progressive Party and former members of the government such as former Prime Minister Sam Hinds,” Teixeira said.
She related that the other three party members were given a specific date to appear at SOCU head offices on Camp Road. However, on Monday, an inspector arrived at her home and told her of her same-day interview.
Teixeira told Stabroek News she was under the impression that she had been under surveillance for days and that the inspectors who showed up at her door had been outside her home for over 20 minutes before making their presence known.
She said the way in which the party members have been called in for questioning reeked of intimidation.
Teixeira said they were told that the NICIL audit report contains a number of allegations that could lead to criminal charges being filed and SOCU addressed these during the interview process. She related that they were told that it was the first phase of questioning and it was made known that there would be additional interviews.
In his audit report on NICIL, former Auditor-General Anand Goolsarran urged that criminal and/or disciplinary actions be instituted against all those responsible for the interception of State revenues totalling $26.858 billion in violation of Articles 216 of the Constitution and the related sections of the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMA) Act. He also urged criminal and/or disciplinary actions against all those responsible for violating Article 217 of the Constitution by causing expenditure to be incurred out of State resources without parliamentary approval.
“I have nothing to hide, I have nothing. I think personally it is a fishing expedition and I think it is meant to intimidate, meant to embarrass and meant to look as if they are doing something…I have nothing to be fearful of. I have broken no laws,” Teixeira declared yesterday.
The opposition chief whip questioned the mandate of SOCU and why ranks from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) conducted the interviews at SOCU’s head office on Camp Road. She said that since SOCU fell under the anti-money laundering legislation, questions remain as to the nexus between the unit, the CID and the forensic audit of NICIL.
“SOCU’s role as we know in law is covered under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act and they relate to the (Financial Intelligence Unit) FIU so again the question is what is SOCU’s role in relation to an audit by Mr Goolsarran of NICIL? It is also to be noted that FIU is without a director therefore the government must answer how does SOCU get involved in this audit report when it is assumed that the FIU and the SOCU relate to one another as guided by law…and not by the capriciousness of whoever thinks they can use SOCU as an instrument to target Members of Parliament of the PPP,” she said.
The opposition Chief Whip highlighted that there is a blurring of lines in relation to the responsibilities of the various law enforcement units. She said while the interviews were conducted at SOCU headquarters, it was CID officers who asked the questions and the head of the unit Sydney James was absent. “SOCU seems to be running on a track that nobody understands,” she asserted.
“The problem for the APNU+AFC Coalition is that they went to the public for three years in a row as a combined party and then later as a coalition and screaming that there was corruption, money laundering and all these unsavoury illegal activities of the PPP/C government and now the problem is they have to prove it. They have led people up the garden path…their first announcement when they got into government was to scream that so much billions of dollars were in secret bank accounts etcetera. Clearly it is to vindicate their own campaign that they carried out (the operations),” she said.
Teixeira accused the government of having tunnel vision when it comes to the former PPP/C administration. She pointed out that government has admitted that huge amounts of gold is being smuggled out of the country and also highlighted the murders committed in the past two weeks of the New Year. “The issues of the other illegalities, why is there not the same focus and passion by the government in relation to the gold smuggling? In relation to the crime? The crime wave? I believe in nine days we had nine murders,” she declared.
Speaking specifically about the NICIL audit and why PPP/C members were being questioned, Teixeira said, “I think basically Mr Goolsarran has tried to build a case to support his allegations that he carried out systematically for three years attacking NICIL and therefore now is trying find the evidence and having still not found enough evidence, he appears to now want to, you know, use the audit as a means to get at PPP/C leaders and Members of Parliament etcetera and former cabinet members.”
