Officers from the police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) yesterday questioned Deeds Registrar Azeema Baksh as they commenced an investigation into allegations that she had made fraudulent payments to herself of over $4 million and waived revenue due to the registry.
While the police have not issued a statement, when contacted yesterday afternoon, Baksh confirmed that she was questioned by the police, but as she did on Tuesday she indicated that her lawyer would issue a statement.
She later revealed that Attorney Nigel Hughes was her lawyer and that he was working on a statement set to be released “this evening.” She stated that as an officer appointed by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) she was not authorised to speak to the press and as such wanted to do things “correctly”, hence her lawyer preparing the statement.
No statement was issued up to press time.
On Tuesday, a statement from the Chambers of Attorney-General Basil Williams SC said that it had referred complaints made by staff and their call for an investigation into alleged financial improprieties committed by Baksh to the CID through Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum.
The Ministry of Legal Affairs’ statement further said that both the Human Resources and Accounting departments of the registry complained that as head of the budget agency, the 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 had allegedly “unlawfully paid herself gratuity well knowing she was a pensionable employee having been appointed by the Judicial Service Commission.”
She had 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 $4.5 million.
Further, the statement claimed, Baksh had waived the sum of a little over $7 million 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 $1.5 million.
Former Attorney General Anil Nandlall, under whose tenure Baksh was appointed, yesterday dismissed the allegations in a statement and claimed that it was another case of “sexist vengeance” by Williams.
Alleging that Williams had expressed the desire to remove Baksh from her post when he was appointed, Nandlall said at the time the Attorney General was unaware that she was appointed by the JSC and that he could neither dismiss nor discipline her.
He also claimed that Baksh had made complaints to the JSC after she was allegedly targeted by the Attorney General.
“When this strategy failed, he began a new method of attack, by concocting and fabricating financial wrongdoings on her part,” Nandlall said in his statement, adding that the claim that a department of the registry requested an investigation was “utter rubbish.”
Labelling the allegations of financial improprieties “incredulous” and “nonsensical”, Nandlall said the Deeds and Commercial Register Authority was an initiative of his, while he was attorney general and came into being by virtue of an Act of Parliament which received unanimous support; it was enacted in 2013, at a time when the APNU+AFC was in opposition and had the majority in the National Assembly.
Following the merger of the Deeds and Commercial registries, he said, there was a transformation process to transition the existing staff, who were then public
servants, into employees of this new unit. In the process, pension rights were protected and employees who were prepared to remain in the public service were transferred while those who went to the unit did so on conditions that were not less favourable than what they had enjoyed as public servants.
According to Nandlall, the Guyana Public Service Union was consulted and at the end of the process all of the employees who transferred to the new unit did so with an increased remuneration package. He said the collective and individual remuneration packages for employees were approved by the Ministries of Legal Affairs and Finance and Cabinet.
“Azeema Baksh, as Registrar of Deeds, was part of this process. Whatever remuneration package she enjoys came out of this consultative process. Whatever remuneration package she received previously, was subsumed under this new arrangement,” Nandlall said.
He described the allegation that she paid herself monies as “absolute trash” as her remuneration package “was duly approved by the authorised agencies and personnel at the time.”
