As investigations continue into the scandal over fuel procurement at GUYOIL, President Irfaan Ali yesterday said that the Chief Finance Officer of the state-owned company, Shawn Persaud and Board member, Akanni Blair will be removed from their positions as the duo had “inappropriate” contact with the importer in question.
This was revealed at a press conference held at State House yesterday. Questioned about the ongoing scandal at GUYOIL, the president stated, “No fraud was committed because no transaction was entered into.”
He added, however, that all those who had inappropriate contact with the importer must be removed and identified Persaud and Blair as being among those involved. Persaud has been on probation in the position.
“What is of great importance to us is to have a review of the systems to ensure that the system is rigid and strong enough at every tier to deal with any potential from a company or an individual wanting to commit a fraud and that is what we are evaluating and we made it very clear that all those who had inappropriate contact must be removed so that would be my take on this issue,” he said.
He added that GUYOIL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Trevor Bassoo who was appointed in October last year was asked to proceed on administrative leave after a performance evaluation and subsequently resigned.
Bassoo has denied that his departure was in any way connected to the current controversy over a fuel shipment allegedly imported by Aaron Royality Inc (ARI), whose owner is claiming that he is now left with a large quantity of fuel on hand after commitments were made by some company officials that GUYOIL would buy it. The dealer claims that he has evidence of the commitments by officials of the company who also tried to solicit kickbacks in return for the company’s purchase.
Following the allegations of procurement irregularities, Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh invited the Auditor General to investigate and sounded a warning that corruption will not be tolerated.
GUYOIL also denied the allegations, saying that while ARI was one of several companies it had been in discussions with, it had not contracted the company to supply fuel. “There is absolutely no truth to this allegation,” the company said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the President said that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government inherited “massive corruption” at GUYOIL when they came to office in August 2020. He revealed that there is currently an ongoing investigations into mismanagement of $300 million in fuel at the Guyana Defence Force and one where companies have been collecting fuel from the terminal on behalf of government agencies.
“These are things we inherited and those investigations are going on and they are with the police and the auditor general. I can’t comment more on that but we inherited massive corruption at GUYOIL but these are being investigated,” he said.
