Less than one week after she was sent on administrative leave, Registrar Azeema Baksh has been reported to the police for allegedly making a fraudulent payment to herself of over $4M and waiving revenue due to the registry, according to the Chambers of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Legal Affairs Basil Williams SC.
A statement that was released by the ministry yesterday announced that it had referred complaints made by staff and their call for an investigation into alleged financial improprieties committed by Baksh to the Criminal Investigation Depart-ment (CID) of the police through Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum.
Contacted yesterday, Baksh, a lawyer by profession, told Stabroek News that she preferred to respond to the allegations through her attorney.
The Ministry of Legal Affairs’ statement said that both the human resources and accounting departments of the registry complained that as head of the budget agency and sole person in authority to approve and sign off the payroll of the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority and one of the main signatories on the authority’s bank account, Baksh allegedly “unlawfully paid herself gratuity well knowing she was a pensionable employee having been appointed by the Judicial Services Commission (JSC).”
She also allegedly unlawfully paid herself a higher salary than was approved by the JSC.
The statement added that officers also disclosed that the payments started since 2014 and continued up to the present and amount to nearly four and half million dollars ($4.5M).
Further, the statement said that Baksh also waived the sum of a little over $7M that was due to the registry. It explained that the sum of $8.5 million was “unlawfully waived” upon the request of an attorney-at-law, who only paid the sum of $1.5M.
Soon after taking up her office in July, 2012, Baksh, who was appointed by the JSC even though she was not fully qualified for the job according to the advertised requirements, had told this newspaper that she intended to transform the registry into an agency that was respectable, accountable and transparent since it was perceived to be corrupt. She had said there was evidence before and after she arrived to support the perception.
“I will be blunt to say that both sides of the arena are to be blamed when we talk about corruption, there is always the giver and there is always the taker and I have tried as much as possible to [say] to members of the public—as much as I speak to my staff on this—please don’t give my staff money, they are paid to do a job…,” she had said at the time.
She had reminded her staff members that they were being paid to do a job and while they may not be receiving the best salaries, they must develop an attitude that if they choose to work in an agency they must be prepared to take what it pays. “And I have said to them that when you get tired of being nice to people… or you feel that the earnings that you are making is not sufficient for your qualification or experience, then I would freely give you a recommendation to move on…,” she had stated.
