Former Finance Minister Winston Jordan yesterday said a series of allegations raised against him by Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC are false and baseless.
In a statement, Jordan was responding to allegations made by the Attorney General in an interview yesterday with Newsroom, the Guyana Times and the Guyana Chronicle.
Jordan noted that Nandlall said that a file into the conduct of the former Finance Minister will very shortly be sent to the Guyana Police Force for the commencement of a criminal investigation. Jordan noted that it was further alleged that he was implicated in a number of nefarious transactions.
“These allegations are false, baseless and repugnant. As on a previous occasion, circa November 2020, I say without fear that they are designed to impugn my character, tarnish my image and lower my esteem in the eyes of my family, friends, admirers, well-wishers and the general public. Moreover, they are intended to intimidate me, in light of my scathing criticism of the government’s approach to development of my beloved country. I cannot and will not be intimidated.
“I wish to thank all of those persons who have praised my stewardship in Office, continue to express full confidence in me and urged me to raise my voice higher and harder for a better Guyana. I wish to reassure everyone that I, Winston Jordan, Former Minister of Finance in the Coalition Government performed my duties in compliance with the oath of my office and to the best of my abilities. This I have done in my over 35 years of public service, in various capacities. I have consulted with my lawyers on this latest attempt to malign me in public, and we have agreed on a certain course of action. A luta continua!”, Jordan stated.
In the interview yesterday, Nandlall told the reporters that the Guyana Police Force will soon be asked to investigate the sale of Guyana Revenue Authority vehicles to relatives of the former Minister of Finance, the US$18M ExxonMobil signing bonus, and several other questionable transactions.
“You will recall that while we were in opposition, we promised that … a number of transactions that were done under the previous government, will be subjected to investigation and charges may flow if those investigations yield those charges based on the advice of the …Director of Public Prosecutions. That is an ongoing process but many people believe that we may have not been pursuing it with desired speed. That is not so. There are so many other things that have happened since that, having diverted the attention of the police force in other direction but we remain committed. We remain committed to that promise to investigate these transactions. For example the former Minister of Finance, Mr. Winston Jordan has been implicated in a number of nefarious and questionable transactions which we intend to send to the police force and to other law enforcement agencies for their investigation. One that comes to mind quickly is the allegation that several vehicles were sold by the Guyana Revenue Authority without due process to relatives of the minister”, Nandlall stated.
He also cited the sale of a number of state properties valued millions of US dollars far below market value without any public procurement process.
Worse yet, he said these occurred after the successful December 21, 2018 motion of no confidence against the APNU+AFC government and between March 2nd, 2020 and August 2nd 2020 when there was a stalemate over the results of the general elections.
“Those transactions are clearly, are clearly offences to law and therefore ought to be subject to investigation. Another one that comes to mind is the transactions or the circumstances surrounding the deposit, the deposit from Exxon Mobil. You would recall the finance minister at the time, completely denied that we ever received that US$18M (signing) bonus and then we subsequently found that it was deposited in some account at the central bank authorized by him in writing…”, Nandlall said.
On December 8, 2017, as he closed the 2018 budget debate, Jordan had denied lying about the signing bonus from ExxonMobil, while saying that he hadn’t been asked precise questions.
Jordan admitted then that he was asked about a signing bonus twice but claimed the questions were “ill directed.”
“They saying I lied to the press. I lied to anybody? They gave me the opportunity to say nothing, and so I said nothing,” the Finance Minister had stated.
Jordan noted that he was asked to comment on a statement made by commentator Christopher Ram that government had received a US$20 million signing bonus.
“I said, US$20 million? I don’t know anything about any US$20 million signing bonus but I will go and find out. It must be a figment of somebody’s imagination,” Jordan had recounted, before adding that “Nobody came back to ask me if I searched. I am not under any obligation to give anybody information that they didn’t ask for…”
Jordan had stressed that he was only required to respond to the question as it was asked. “If you ask me a question, I’ll answer it directly. I went and find out and there was no signing bonus of US$20 million and up to today there is no signing bonus of US$20 million, so I don’t know what is the big jumping up,” he added. The signing bonus was US$18 million.
“Nobody asked me if the government received a signing bonus; they had a specific figure attached to it and my specific response is ‘no,’” the Finance Minister had reiterated.
Referring yesterday to the signing bonus and other matters, Nandlall said: “So these are matters that will obviously continue to receive the attention of the relevant state agencies and investigative arm of the state. And, that is a state duty that we owe as a government to the people of this country. After all we have a duty to the people of Guyana to protect public property and to protect public funds. Public funds which are owned by the people, public property which are owned by the people. We have a duty to protect them and to call in the investigative state apparatus where the circumstances require investigation to take place and we have certainly identified certain areas”.
He added: “Recall …we would’ve also spoken at length about land giveaways. Some of them we have settled already. Others are still to be handed over to the Guyana Police Force and the other investigative agencies of the law. So I just wanted to bring you up to speed on those battles because there seems to be a public perception developing that we are not delivering on the spot.”
