Although Guyana’s envoy to Kuwait Dr. Shamir Ally was convicted in the United States of an offence under the US Securities Exchange Act, the Alliance for Change (AFC) last evening stressed that he was never convicted of a crime and always maintained his innocence in the civil case brought against him.
“We must reiterate that contrary to recent media reports, Dr. Shamir Ally was charged and required to pay a penalty by the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission]. He was not convicted of a crime,” the party said in a statement.
The statement comes amidst an investigation that has been launched by the Foreign Affairs Ministry following reports on Ally’s conviction.
Ally, a member and financier of the AFC, was selected several months ago for the Kuwait posting. Critics have said that both the party and the APNU+AFC government should have been aware of the conviction and the question is also being raised about why Dr Ally had not volunteered the information when he was being considered for the diplomatic service.
Ally, according to documentation on the case, had a civil case filed against him and Ronald Lanchoney and Robert Mancuso by the SEC and he was fined US$10,000. However, the ruling stated that the defendants consented to the entry of the orders without admitting or denying the Commission’s allegation in the action.
In the statement issued last evening, the AFC said that Ally, in all his correspondences with the SEC, had disagreed with the charges and paid the fine under protest.
The statement said Ally was employed by Acrodyne, a public manufacturing company, for a short period of time from February 2, 1999 to May 9, 1999 as the Cost Accounting Manager. On May 10, 1999, he was promoted to Controller and he served in this position for fifteen months up to July 10, 2000, when his services were terminated.
However, the AFC said that in May, 2002, the SEC, the United States agency for maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets in-country, served notice on Acrodyne and its former principals of its intention to take civil action.
“The charge read that the SEC was accusing former President A. Robert Mancuso and former Chief Financial Officer Ronald R. Lanchoney, along with Controller Shamir Ally, of disseminating false financial information in press releases and Commission filings in 1998, 1999 and 2000,” the statement said.
It added that instead of proceeding with a long and costly trial, the three were strongly advised by the company’s attorney to make a deal with the SEC to pay fines without admission of guilt, which they did.
According to the AFC, Dr. Ally’s vehement denials of any culpability were first contained in correspondences to the Staff Attorney of the SEC’s Central Regional Office Dawn Leporati Leget, on May 29, 2002. “His position today, fourteen (14) years after the incident, remains unchanged,” it said, while adding that Ally insists that the company’s annual reports to the SEC were accurate financial results, gleaned from information available from the company’s accounting systems.
It was explained that Acrodyne used to prepare quarterly reports based on some actual, and some estimated figures. According to the statement, at year-end they did annual stocktaking for end of year reports which were all audited and forwarded to the SEC. The Quarterly Reports to the SEC, it was stated, were not audited. “That was Standard Operating Procedure at Acrodyne. There were also no highly computerized systems to offer closer evaluations from one year to the next,” the statement said.
It was explained that the CFO also paid a US$10,000 penalty and the company’s President US$50,000.
Dr. Ally, the statement said, also accused the SEC of making him a “scapegoat” since the accounting procedures he had worked with he had inherited from his predecessors, and he has consistently iterated that he worked under the close supervision of Lanchoney, the CFO.
His July, 2000 termination ruled out his ability to access the accounting records which would have enabled him to substantially rebut the SEC’s 2002 charge, it added.
According to the AFC, contrary to information carried recently in several sections of the local media claiming that the SEC’s 2002 charges took away his voting rights in the USA, Ally “has proven that the SEC’s final judgment (the US$10,000 penalty) never prohibited him from serving as an Officer or Director of any public company (as it did his erstwhile colleagues), neither did it rescind his voting rights.”
The release said that since 2002, Dr. Ally has continued to function unimpeded at very high levels in and out of the United States, voting at all nations, city and town elections.
At Indian Trail, North Carolina, it noted, Dr. Ally was sworn in to serve on six Town Boards and Committees from 2014 to December 2015 and more recently, in February 2015, the North Carolina Secretary of State appointed him as a notary public.
The AFC’s statement also came a day after party leader Khemraj Ramjattan expressed surprise that he had been convicted and said an ongoing investigation will determine the gravity of the matter and ultimately the government’s decision.
