The Alliance for Change (AFC) yesterday called for a “full and unfettered” investigation by the Guyana Police Force into the fuel procurement scandal at the Guyana Oil Company (Guyoil).
“It is outrageous that the police has not been called in. Further, we believe that the entire board should be disbanded as there is evidence of attempts to breach the company’s procurement policy and members of the Board were aware of this,” APNU+AFC parliamentarian Juretha Fernandes stated during a virtual press conference.
Fernandes went on to say that “the nation was scandalised when recordings were made public of Directors and management staff openly soliciting bribes and kickbacks in return for approving the purchase of fuel yet the current administration which had clamoured for criminal charges to be brought against officials of the coalition and ordinary citizens on the most frivolous of accusations, is now letting their corrupt cronies off with a slight slap on the wrist.
Last month the principal of Aaron’s Royality Inc (ARI) Jayson Aaron claimed that the company had been left with a large quantity of fuel on hand after a commitment for purchase was made by Guyoil company officials. He claims that he has evidence of the commitments by officials of the company who also tried to solicit kickbacks in return.
He has since released audio recording and images of WhatsApp conversations he claimed to have had with officials.
Last week, Aaron was arrested and questioned for allegedly falsifying the series of WhatsApp messages he released. He has since been released on $100,000 bail.
Additionally the vessel which was said to be carrying ARI’s fuel for Guyoil is reportedly in the custody of the GDF Coast Guard. The vessel reportedly loaded the fuel in Venezuela.
Over at Guyoil, Chief Finance Officer of the state-owned company Shawn Persaud and board member, Akanni Blair are to be removed from their positions as the duo had “inappropriate” contact with the importer in question. This was announced on Wednesday by President Irfaan Ali who maintained that “No fraud was committed because no transaction was entered into.”
“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 declared.
AFC General Secretary and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) David Patterson yesterday stressed that it was not for Ali to declare that no fraud was committed.
“To have evidence of a blatant attempt to defraud a state agency to such an extent and to have a response that is a simple tap on the hands is unacceptable. The police should be investigating. The individuals should possibly be charged and go through the same kind of interrogation [used against former members of the APNU+AFC administration] until it is proven that no crime is committed,” party executive Cathy Hughes added, before explaining that it shows that crime in Guyana is not prosecuted based on the merits of the case but on the identity of the accused.
Patterson also disagreed with Ali’s claim that his government inherited “massive corruption” at Guyoil.
“That’s a smokescreen. The Auditor General and police have been looking into GDF’s procurement of fuel for a while. That is no massive scandal at Guyoil. It’s smokescreen he’s trying to deflect by throwing something at the coalition. Corruption is corruption. If there was corruption then let him prosecute it to the fullest extent of the law and there is clearly corruption now so let him prosecute that to the fullest extent of the law,” the former minister emphasised.
According to Ali, there is currently an ongoing investigation 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 had said.
