Retired and serving senior police officers were yesterday arraigned on charges of conspiracy to defraud the Guyana Police Force (GPF) of over $10 million, stemming from a paid review of the force’s Standing Orders.
Those charged before Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus were retired Assistant Commissioner of Police Clinton Conway, retired Assistant Commissioner Claude Whittaker, retired Senior Superintendent George Fraser and retired Senior Superintendent Michael Sutton, retired Superintendent Mark Gilbert, Assistant Commis-sioner Royston Andries-Junor, and Assistant Superintendent Marlon Kellman.
Retired Assistant Com-missioner of Police Paul Slowe and former Police Finance Officer Woman Senior Superintendent Marcelene Washington were also named in the charges but were absent from the proceedings. While Slowe was reported to be out of the country, one of the attorneys representing the accused said that the two were not informed of the charges.
The first charge states that Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser, Gilbert, Andries-Junor, Washing-ton, Sutton and Kellman, between March 1st 2019 and July 7th, 2020, at the Guyana Police Force Headquarters, Eve Leary, Kingston, Georgetown, conspired together and with other persons un-known to defraud the GPF of $10,056,000 by paying Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser, and Gilbert the funds without complying with the proper procedures, purportedly to do a review of the Guyana Police Force Standing Orders. It was noted that the review had already been conducted between July, 2018 and March, 2019 by the Strategic Planning Unit of the GPF.
A second charge stated that Michael Sutton, being and performing duties as Finance Officer for the GPF, between July 1st, 2019 and July 31st, 2019, at the GPF Headquarters, Eve Leary, willfully misconducted himself while performing the said duties by falsely signing seven payment vouchers as the accounting officer, which he was not authorised to do, enabling Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser and Gilbert to be paid a total of $1,776,000 without the approval of Daniella McCalmon, the Account-ing Officer, and without any reasonable excuse or justification.
The accused were not allowed to plead to the indictable conspiracy charge and were granted bail in the sum of $100,000 each.
Sutton was granted a total of $200,000 bail due to the two charges against him.
The matters were ad-journed until June 3rd, 2021.
The accused present were represented by several attorneys, including Nigel Hughes, Patrice Henry, Narissa Leander, Dexter Todd and Darren Wade.
Hughes, who spoke with reporters after the court proceedings, stated that the persons brought before the court were of impeccable character, with some having served the force for over 40 years without any allegations being made against them.
He added that they are now brought before the court on matters which appear to not be substantiated by evidence as he gave the example of particulars of the charge which did not identify the procedures that were breached.
The alleged fraud was unearthed during an investigation conducted by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), according to the GPF.
In a statement, the police said that Leslie James, former Commis-sioner of Police, solely hired Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Gilbert and Fraser to conduct a complete revision of the Stand-ing Orders in March 2019.
The police said James did not prepare a budget for the service that was offered or make contractual agreements with specifications of what was to be revised and the terms of payments. It was further stated that he did not receive approval from the Permanent Secretary of the then Ministry of Public Security or the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board. Given the amount paid, the project was supposed to go to tender.
According to the statement, payments accounts were prepared individually from March, 2019 upon instructions from the Head of the Strategic Planning Unit (SPU), Assistant Commissioner Andries-Junor and upon his transfer from the Unit in November 2019, he instructed the new Head of SPU, to ensure she continue making out payment accounts for the said officers.
Those accounts were made out as instructed until February, 2020.
An examination of over 60 payment vouchers showed that Washington and Sutton, signed 15 Payment Vouchers collectively as the Accounting Officer, while not having the authority to do such, police added.
Slowe on Wednesday told Stabroek News that the allegations leveled against him are false and malicious and are designed to tarnish his “unblemished” reputation.
In an invited comment on the same day, Conway expressed shock at the allegations.
Conway said that sometime in 2019, then then Commissioner of Police Leslie James invited him and a number of other retired officers to a meeting at the GPF Headquarters.
“…And he (James) said he wants us to review the police Standing Orders… We agreed. Nothing about money….we on our own thought that it was a good idea for us to do some work for the police,” Conway said.
He said he and the other former ranks commenced the work at the force’s Strategic Management Office. “….We did a total of 68 (standing orders),” he added.
During the process, Conway explained that an Assistant Commissioner of Police, who was at the time in charge of the unit, told them that James and his management team made a decision that those conducting the revision should be paid a “stipend”.
“…We continued the work….$3,000 per an hour. They at the Strategic Management Unit monitored our activities….We worked and then when the date for national and regional elections was announced, the management team said that we cannot use the office anymore because they were preparing it for elections,” Conway related.
He added that after elections, the country experienced a COVID-19 outbreak.
“We were not recalled to do any other work. All the work that we did we saved and we put them on the computers that is at the Strategic Management Unit. We had no deadline when to complete all the Standing Orders. We did not negotiate for any payment,” Conway stated.
