With a Guyana Police Force audit of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) uncovering evidence of fraud, the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) yesterday called for the unit to be shut down and for an independent forensic audit to be conducted towards prosecuting all personnel implicated in wrongdoing.
The call was made in a statement issued yesterday in reaction to a report in the Stabroek News on the findings of the audit, which sources told this newspaper found the doctoring of records and recommended the immediate transfer of personnel and a fraud investigation of several of the discrepancies.
The PPP said the findings have vindicated the concerns repeatedly expressed by the party over the past four years about the operations of the unit, which it argued has deviated from its original mandate of combatting organised crimes and money laundering and has instead been reduced to a rogue unit carrying out political directions to witch-hunt PPP leaders and shake down the business community under the pretext of crime fighting.
“This agenda of political vendetta has seen the arrests and charge of several PPP leaders and public officers, who served their country while the PPP was in Government. In most cases, criminal charges, never heard of before and alien to the law, have been instituted against highly qualified professional Guyanese, causing tremendous reputational damage and immense stress and trauma to those charged and their families,” the party said.
Over the years, the PPP said, it has received multiple reports from businessmen that SOCU officers had extracted huge bribes from them and also seized large amounts of cash, including quantities of foreign currencies, and jewellery, among other valuables, without due process, and converted these assets to their own use.
It added that it has also received reports of falsification of evidence in prosecutions and the refusal to disclose materials which the law requires in order to ensure a fair trial of persons charged.
It also alleged that the unit has taken political directions from the current government administration.
“The materials disclosed by the audit have confirmed our worst fears. But, we are convinced that it is only the tip of the iceberg. This Unit has rendered itself absolutely unfit to function as a law enforcement agency and as part of the prosecutorial arm of the State,” it further said, while charging that it had no doubt that investigations and prosecutions are being compromised.
As a result, it urged that the unit be shut down immediately, that Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan resign, also immediately, and that a forensic audit be conducted by an impartial and professional auditor into the functioning and affairs of the unit with the intention of prosecuting all those implicated in wrongdoing.
The unit, initially set up to probe financial crimes and strengthen the country’s anti-money laundering architecture, had not been audited since its establishment in 2014. However, Police Com-missioner Leslie James in February ordered the audit following the publicising of concerns about grave mismanagement, which included the misuse of its operational fund, by former SOCU adviser Dr Sam Sittlington and others.
Based on the information provided to this newspaper, the GPF’s Audit Department, which conducted the investigation, focused on the years 2016 to 2019, during which time over $52 million is said to have been collected by SOCU from the Ministry of Public Security for its operational fund.
The fund is to be used for the payment of SOCU informants, the rental of vehicles for surveillance, the maintenance of the unit’s building, and basic administrative expenses, among other things, but Sittlington as well as others who spoke with this newspaper on the condition of anonymity had voiced concern about how it was being used.
Sources told Stabroek News that during the period under audit, several staff members received sums totalling millions of dollars and while it was claimed in most cases that the money was for intelligence gathering, there was no corroborating documentation. Further, the money paid out to the staff was not far off from what was paid out to informants/sources.
In one instance, the examination of payments of more than half a million dollars each to three ranks in one month in 2016 is said to have uncovered receipts that were backdated to make the payouts look legitimate.
Stabroek News was also informed that the auditors were hampered by the absence of receipts and money being used for unspecified purposes.
There was also evidence of unsigned entries in the financial records, while an official has alleged that their signature was forged.
This newspaper was told that it was found that some of the listed expenditure was concocted. There are reportedly numerous cases where purchases were recorded but when the auditors checked with vendors, including a number of established businesses, it was discovered that SOCU collected quotations but never made the purchases.
Also highlighted were irregular transactions between SOCU and a number of businesses. Sources said the auditors found invoices that were duplicated or tampered with, fraudulent double entries, and false entries.
SOCU is headed by Assistant Commissioner Sydney James, who is one of more than a dozen persons interviewed by the police force’s auditors.
