Auditor General Deodat Sharma says that an audit at the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) unearthed that $181.567M in fuel was uplifted by an unauthorised vehicle.
According to the Auditor General’s Report for the fiscal year 2019, within the last year, the GDF had “severe” shortcomings as it relates to the purchase, reconciliation and storage of fuel.
On this note, the report highlighted that 887,800 litres of fuel valued $181.567M were uplifted by the unauthorised vehicle.
“This included twenty-six instances where 2,000 gallons of gasoline were uplifted for the Coast Guard Headquarters, Ruimveldt, even though the storage capacity at this location was only 1,000 gallons,” the report disclosed.
According to Sharma, at the time the report was prepared, the matter was being investigated by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and the Military Intelligence Department of the GDF.
In September, Minister in the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar had announced that a $300M fraud was discovered by the GDF around fuel supply at GuyOil.
He had said that allegations of alleged unusual activity between GuyOil staff and GDF personnel over fuel led to a police investigation.
Meanwhile, in a separate statement on August 26, GuyOil had said that the state corporation suffered no loss from the fraudulent activity involving its staff and the GDF.
The statement had noted that internal investigations found the allegations to be “substantive” enough to warrant the involvement of the police and the Criminal Investigation Department is doing its own probe
“Following internal company investigations and according to due process procedures with identified staff members, appropriate action was taken, as transparency and accountability remain the overarching principles of GuyOil,” the release said.
