Citing the sensitivity of the issue as well as a confidentiality clause that governs executive meetings, Bank of Guyana Governor and current Chair-man of the Guyana Gold Board Dr Gobin Ganga has declined to comment on allegations made by former Chair-man GHK Lall that he [Ganga] had in 2019 said that there was evidence of gold smuggling from Venezuela that could have led to blacklisting of this country.
However, Ganga said that Lall’s assertions do not paint a true picture of the issues then but he added that he doesn’t want to be “caught up” in a back and forth with the former Chairman.
“I do not wish to comment because there are confidentiality clauses [which] guide those meetings and I also do not want to be in a back and forth with Mr. Lall,” the Gold Board Chairman told the Stabroek News on Thursday when contacted.
Efforts to contact Head of the Guyana Gold Board Eondrene Thompson for comment proved futile as calls to her office and mobile numbers went unanswered.
In a letter to Stabroek News published on Thursday, Lall said that Ganga in 2019 said that there was evidence of gold being smuggled from Venezuela and it placed the country at risk of being blacklisted. Venezuela has faced stringent international sanctions over oil and other commodities over the conduct of the Maduro administration.
Lall’s letter followed Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s statement last Friday that there was no evidence of gold from Venezuela being smuggled here.
In November 2012, US$11.5 million in smuggled gold from Guyana was stolen from a Guyanese fishing boat – Summer Bliss – in Curaçao.
When the APNU+AFC government had entered office in 2015, leading members had spoken openly about large volumes of gold being smuggled out of the country.
However, over the five-year term there was no notable sign of efforts to stamp this out and they have not said much on the issue.
Jagdeo said that while there were allegations of gold being smuggled into Guyana, there was no evidence to substantiate this, but he pointed out that well-known gold trader Tamesh Jagmohan has been suspended from supplying the Guyana Gold Board since September of 2019.
He was asked about a probe by the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) that a supplier here sold smuggled gold from Venezuela. He said that the supplier in question, Jagmohan, has not sold gold to the Gold Board since that point.
“Since then, the Gold Board has not purchased any gold from Mr. Jagmohan… I think it was in September to now, no gold from him,” he said.
Asked if the issue with Jagmohan was cleared up, he replied, “I think the issue was not just that, but other issues.”
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) had recommended in 2019 that a high-level team be established to conduct a comprehensive review of the trading of gold, amid concerns that Venezuelan gold was filtering into the local market in 2019, causing the Guyana dollar to depreciate.
The FIU is an autonomous body responsible for requesting, receiving, analyzing and disseminating suspicious transaction reports and other information relating to money laundering, terrorist financing or the proceeds of crime. It was established under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act (AML/ CFTA) 2009 and its Regulations.
The current and former Attorneys General, Anil Nandlall and Basil Williams, have both said that they are unaware of the FIU’s recommendation for a high-level probe of gold trading which was made in 2019.
There has been renewed interest in the gold trade following the disclosure in Stabroek News that the Guyana Gold Board (GGB) was at the time investigating allegations made to the Minerals Grievance Platform (MGP) that local large-scale gold trader, El Dorado Trading, is connected to illegally sourced Venezuelan gold, a claim the company has denied vehemently.
Following the allegation, the Royal Canadian Mint suspended the intake of El Dorado gold from the GGB until further notice.
The suspension is still in effect, Jagdeo informed and this was echoed by Ganga, who said that the issue was still being addressed.
‘Big trouble’
Lall wants Ganga to address the issue and to say what the findings of the probe were. “On Thursday, September 19, 2019, the Governor of the Bank of Guyana, Dr. Gobin Ganga, was kind enough to invite me to a meeting, where other very senior officers of the Central Bank were present. After I extended the preambles of professional courtesies, the business of the day commenced. Governor Ganga’s words were, the country was in big trouble, and that he has “the evidence of Venezuelan gold being smuggled into Guyana.” To those the distinguished governor added that there was the risk of the country being ‘blacklisted’,” Lall wrote.
He said that his response to Ganga’s announcement was that “any available evidence should be shared at the highest levels with the appropriate people.”
If the news is true that there is no evidence of smuggled gold, Lall said, then he lauds this but there are still unanswered questions and Ganga should answer them.
Lall said that he does not know what happened from then. “The inquiring part of my mind that still functions raises this question: where is the erstwhile Governor of the Bank of Guyana today on this issue, since reports of such smuggling have intensified, not diminished? It becomes even more relevant, when I understand that Dr. Ganga is now chair of the Guyana Gold Board, a place where I think, now that he wears multiple hats, that he can be a game changer in certain directions. I would humbly recommend that the Governor shares his prior intelligence with the Hon. Vice President, as there is some contradiction,” Lall wrote.
“Whatever the Governor and the VP do, I would hope that it is what is best for Guyana; of a venerable Governor of the nation’s Central Bank, coupled with that of Chairman of the Gold Board, I think that Dr. Ganga is well-positioned to do so; and I would expect no less. As the Governor himself did state in no uncertain terms to me and others, the country is at risk, very high risk. Accordingly, this country should expect from him only what is protective of its interests, its reputation, and nothing else,” he added.
Lall said that he believes that there is still much left not stated on the matter. “For all of the aforementioned reasons, with much left unstated, I think that what the Vice President said about gold smuggling, if and when subjected to thorough and genuine smell and taste tests, would fall short on both counts,” he opined.
