High Court Judge Franklyn Holder has ordered the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) to reinstate licenses to Atlantic Fuels Inc (AFI) to allow its continued importation and trade of fuel.
This is according to a press release from attorney for AFI, Siand Dhurjon, who said the Court found that the GEA had usurped its powers and acted unlawfully when it cancelled AFI’s licence last March.
According to Dhurjon, the judge ruled that GEA’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mahender Sharma; did not have the powers of a Court to determine that AFI was guilty of breaching a regulation.
Dhurjon said the judge declared that “any state agency or statutory body ought to act within the powers given by Parliament. Their role should not be usurped.”
In May of last year, AFI filed a lawsuit challenging the energy agency’s cancellation of its licence, asking the Court among other things, for orders of certiorari—quashing that decision and mandamus—commanding the GEA to reinstate the licence.
AFI argued that GEA’s decision was among other things unreasonable, unfair, arbitrary and therefore null and void.
Dhurjon in the press release said it had been GEA’s contention that AFI breached Regulation 70 of the Petroleum Regulations by wilfully submitting false information to the energy agency in the form of an invoice, “bearing an incorrect supplier.”
This would later lead to an investigation, seizure of fuel belonging to AFI and the cancellation of its import licence.
Dhurjon said the judge made it clear that Sharma’s “cancellation [of the licence] ran afoul of the laws and regulations,” as the CEO had no powers to so do.
The lawyer said that his client had at all times strongly denied any role in creating the false invoice or any knowledge of the falsity thereon.
He said that the cancellation of the licence “effectively shut down AFI’s business of importing, trading and reselling fuel and placed it and its employees on the verge of financial ruination,” while adding that the company has also had to “fire employees, move offices and borrow money to stay afloat.”
Of the ruling, Dhurjon remarked, “justice has been served and [said] that he hopes that the GEA will follow its mandate according to law in future.”
A year ago, acting Chief Justice Roxane George SC had ordered the GEA and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to pay the $12.8 million in storage cost for the 635,353 liters of diesel fuel they had seized from the fuel company.
In addition to the storage cost, the Chief Justice had noted in her ruling that the Revenue Authority and Energy Agency would incur a further debt of $113,500 for every additional day they continue to detain the fuel.
Following that ruling, Dhurjon had said the Chief Justice had noted that with $20,000,000 in taxes and fees having already been paid to the GRA and GEA to facilitate the marking and release of the fuel, “it was difficult to see how revenue owed to the state could be lost,” as the Respondent State agencies sought to contend.
When AFI attempted to import the fuel, the GEA wrote its main Director Dr. Richard Van West-Charles, indicating that investigations had revealed that the fuel was purchased from Staatsolie—a Surinamese Company—as opposed to Global Oil.
AFI said that GEA claimed to be in possession of an invoice from Staatsolie, which it said was materially different from the invoice submitted by AFI in terms of the purchaser, and the quantity of oil purchased.
As a consequence, the shipment of fuel was detained, and AFI was served with a summons to attend the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court on January 4th last year on a charge of “causing to be made and subscribed a false declaration to the GRA” contrary to section 217(1) (a) of the Customs Act.
AFI had disputed making the alleged false declaration, while stating that even if a false declaration was made, that did not permit the detention of the fuel. Consequently, AFI asked the High Court to grant several orders including that the respondents be compelled to release the fuel.
