A city magistrate on Wednesday ruled that there would be no stay in the proceedings against the former members of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) who are charged with committing fraud.
The decision was made on the remaining charges against former GRDB General Manager Jagnarine Singh, former Deputy Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture Prema Roopnarine, Agricultural Consultant Madanlall ‘Ricky’ Ramraj, and Member of Parliament Nigel Dharamlall.
The charges against the accused allege that they failed to record entries for funds amounting to over $250 million in the agency’s general ledger.
At the last hearing, on October 25th, the prosecution was ordered by presiding Magistrate Leron Daly to release the original report of the forensic audit of the GRDB, which was conducted by accountant Nigel Hinds.
At previous hearings, there had been contention between the prosecution and the defence over whether the handover by the prosecution of a redacted copy of the forensic audit report, which informed the charges, satisfied an order made by Justice Navindra Singh, who had ruled that the document be produced, failing which the charges against Ramraj would be permanently stayed.
Attorney for the accused, Anil Nandlall, had filed the application for the stay after contending that the prosecution failed to comply with an order made by Magistrate Daly to hand over the audit report to the defence.
Magistrate Daly, in her ruling on Wednesday, stated that after reviewing the report, she observed that it contained material that was related to a number of other audits. A majority of this information, she noted, was not relevant to the current case.
She noted that the defence has a right to information that is relevant to the case against its client, before noting that what the prosecution has presented is a redacted version of the report with the information only relevant to the charges.
A copy of this report was ordered to be presented to attorney Glenn Hanoman, while the prosecution was ordered to recall Hinds in order for him to continue his testimony.
The matter was later adjourned until December 19th, when the trial is expected to continue.
