Former president Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday declared that he does not have hidden wealth in shell accounts and is willing to declare his holdings, both local and overseas, if the opposition members would do the same.
“Anywhere, the answer is ‘no,’” Jagdeo said when asked by Stabroek News if, given the international focus on tax havens and shell accounts in wake of the leaked ‘Panama Papers,’ he had any unknown accounts.
“I am prepared, and I mentioned it to (Prime Minister Moses) Nagamootoo, because they like to talk… I saw him and I said ‘why don’t we go to the Parliament together, to ask Interpol to find out about all Members of Parliament who have bank accounts abroad, who have shares in companies etcetera, to give us a report on everyone…’ If they say yes, the next day we sit and draft the motion,” he added.
Not all the data has been released but there is a mention of Guyana with one beneficiary and one shareholder connected to Guyana by address among the information that has been made public. The details of this person have not been published.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) together with the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other media partners, spent a year sifting through 11.5 million leaked files to expose the offshore holdings, based on, among other things, 40 years of data from a little-known but powerful Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The firm has offices in more than 35 locations around the globe, and is one of the world’s top creators of shell companies, corporate structures that can be used to hide ownership of assets.
“No, no, no, no, no my name ain’t in no Panama report,” Jagdeo said, while adding that he does not believe that any of his former ministers of government is named and that in time whoever is, their name or names would be revealed.
He said that his local assets are already identified in his Integrity Commission filing but he believes that the probing of assets of politicians here should be increased to include international possessions.
“They are fearful that people may not have declared in the Integrity Commission. That is why we have to get an international investigator to look at it because if a man hides it, say in Panama, he won’t put it in his Integrity Commission [filing]. We move past the integrity already, this one, I am saying hire an investigator to look at all the holdings,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I will declare everything local and overseas. The local money is in my Integrity Commission everything. Everything you have to declare there, you would have seen it there. Now that you have my answer, which is no, I hope that you will ask the same question of several people, including one newspaper owner,” he added.
Jagdeo stressed that he was not the shareholder linked to Guyana nor does he have overseas hidden accounts and wants government to have an investigation done that would prove this.
He said that based on a motion proposed by the PPP/C in the National Assembly to have ministers’ tax records released, the public would know he was not afraid to make known his sources of incomes.
“We went to the Parliament with a motion to release our tax records. We know the history now and they say that Jagdeo doesn’t want to release his tax records because he doesn’t pay taxes; so it would have been better to have a motion to release the statements to the Integrity Commission. We amended the motion there, to include the release of our integrity commission statement to the public and also a clause which says we should go aggressively and prosecute those who have not submitted to it… they [the government] voted against it. The government that wants transparency, they voted against it. That was the first litmus test on transparency,” Jagdeo asserted.
“I am prepared now to cooperate with the government, not surreptitiously with that thing, SARU [State Assets Recovery Unit], because they are political hacks…they are there to damage (reputations) and nothing else… let’s do this as a motion in Parliament, so the international organisation won’t treat it as partisan, they will treat it as a national thing. Not just the status of all presidents and ex-presidents, all Members of Parliament, their holdings abroad. Remember their argument is that they don’t know what people stashed abroad.
We are prepared to do this, ask them if they are prepared to do this; to go with us jointly and make a request of anybody, if not Interpol, an investigative firm, together to look at all of the holdings of everyone. This [proposal] goes beyond my ‘no’ answer,” he added.
